Caine on Batman, Depp

First Johnny Depp is thinking about bailing on Jack Sparrow in the completely necessary PIRATES sequel, and now he’s possibly out of the BATMAN movie that he was never actually a part of in the first place? What’s going on here?

This latest bit of info comes from Michael Caine talking to MTV News about the current non-status of BATMAN 3. He may not know much, but he’s pretty sure that Depp won’t be in it. Well, probably not. Maybe not.

“There is nobody, there’s no script, there’s nothing…It can’t possibly be made before 2011 because ‘Inception’ is such a big picture.”

“[They] won’t tell me anything because I said this before,” laughed Caine of the no-tell policy surrounding him after last year’s Depp/Hoffman story. Nevertheless, Caine offered this bit of “news”—before admitting that it could be wrong, and he’d be in trouble all over again.

“Johnny Depp is great in anything, but there is no Johnny Depp in this Batman,” he smiled. “They tell me in no uncertain terms.”

I’m purposefully doing a disservice to the Depp/Riddler movement by posting this story, because the more we talk about it, the less likely it is to happen. And to me, that’s a good thing. I want Nolan to go in completely some random-ass Ledger-esque direction with the next film (when it finally does happen). and as much as Depp has proven he can dance around like a nutcase with a weird haircut (that’s a Willy Wonka not a Sweeney Todd reference), I think we should broaden our scope past the obvious A-listers that come to mind for these kinds of roles.