As the start date for production on The Dark Knight Rises creeps closer and closer, the public has been going through a slight frenzy over any piece of (casting) news for Christopher Nolan's third and final entry to the "Batman" film canon. Now, the Heat Vision blog of The Hollwyood Reporter claims that actor Josh Pence, who played Armie Hammer's body twin in The Social Network, has been cast ... as Ra's Al Ghoul.
Unless you've been living under a rock, you probably have seen Batman Begins and know that Ra's (played by Liam Neeson) met his fate during the climactic train sequence outside of Wayne Tower. So how can he be in The Dark Knight Rises? The blog reports that sources have one world to say: "flashback." Pence will supposedly play Ra's in his youth, 30 years prior to the events of TDKR.
If this news is to be believed, then it makes Marion Cotillard's rumored (please let it be true) involvement in the project all the more tempting. The rumor is that Cotillard will play Talia Al Ghoul, daughter to Ra's and frequent love interest to Bruce Wayne in the comics. If that's the case, she no doubt would enter TDKR with questions regarding her father's death, maybe pulling Bane into the picture?
Pence (can you sense the slight resemblence to Neeson?) joins series veterans Christian Bale (Bruce Wayne/Batman), Michael Caine (Alfred), Morgan Freeman (Lucius Fox), Gary Oldman (Commissioner Gordon) as well as series newcomers Anne Hathaway (Selina Kyle/Catwoman), Tom Hardy (Bane) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
