Eddie Murphy & Warner Respond To ‘Dark Knight’ Sequel Rumors

 
 

FIRST PUBLISHED: December 18, 2008 1:26 PM EST
LAST UPDATED: December 18, 2008 1:39 PM EST

LOS ANGELES, Calif. --

Rumors have run wild on who will play the villain or villains in the next Batman movie – but it looks like Eddie Murphy won’t be one of them.

Murphy had been rumored to play the Riddler in the ‘Dark Knight’ sequel – but his rep tells Access Hollywood it’s “not true.”

Other reports have cast both Rachel Weisz and Angelina Jolie as Catwoman, Johnny Depp also as the Riddler and Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the Penguin in the sequel to the box office smash. The Depp and Hoffman rumor began with none other than series star Michael Caine, who plays Bruce Wayne’s butler, Alfred – but Hoffman himself denied it to MTV News.

“No one has talked to me about it ever — never,” he said.

Meanwhile, Alan Horn, the president of Warner Bros., told entertainment site Collider.com on Thursday that the storyline is the project’s main priority right now.

“The story is everything,” Horn told the site. “We’ve been talking to [director] Chris Nolan and what we have to do is get him in the right place and have him tell us what he thinks the notion might be for a great story, but Chris did a great job and we’d love to have him come back and do another one… we are going to be respectful of his timing and we want to get it right.”

But while Batman waits in the wings, some other DC heroes could hit the silver screen soon – Horn said Green Lantern is the “best guess,” but he’d like to see the Man of Steel back as well.

“We’re very anxious to bring Superman back also,” he said. “Probably in the next couple of years.”

In the meantime, fans still can’t get enough of “The Dark Knight” — it sold a staggering 13.5 million copies worldwide on Blu-Ray and DVD in its first week of release, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

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