Talking with writer David Goyer, Cinescape uncovered why the "Blade" scribe chose to take on the Bat-mantle:

"My whole life, all I wanted to do was write a Batman movie, says Goyer. It was excruciating for me because here I was being offered to work with an amazing director, but time-wise there was no way I could do it. But his agent called back and said, You have to do it. By negotiating to only do a first draft, with Nolan rewriting and revising from there, Goyer got his dream and the result is a Batman movie the writer thinks fans are going to eat up. Its the most faithful to the comic books and it certainly darker than the Schumacher films, admits Goyer It treats the story seriously and its also quite romantic. We were determined to create a new classic and we treated the subject matter seriously "

More importantly he discussed the fate of the assorted rogue's gallery of villains in the reinvented franchise:
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"We weren't sure what villains we wanted to use, but we knew it should be villains that hadnt been used in the films, says Goyer. At the same time we didnt want to make any up. If you look at the rogues gallery, the ones that hadnt been used were Scarecrow and Ras Al Ghul. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to bring those characters in. We knew we were going to do an original story, but if we do this right, we can then reintroduce the rogues gallery the audience has met before in the movies, but in a new way".

Meanwhile the project's main rival in the superhero genre next year is Fox's upcoming adaptation of "The Fantastic Four" which HNR has announced has opened its production office doors in Vancouver. Filming dates of August 9th 2004 thru February 2nd 2005 have been set - meaning the six month shoot is right up there alongside "X-Men 2", "Chronicles of Riddick" and "I, Robot" as the longest feature film shoot in Vancouver history. The currently filming "Elektra" will wrap it's shoot on July 9th.

Thanks to 'JHBlade' & 'Mark'