So I know we were placing our bets on The Dark Knight's follow-up to bow in 2011, but now the whole affair's looking kind of dead in the water. Michael Caine explained his reservations to British magazine Shortlist. "But I don't know if they are ever going to make another Batman," Caine explains. "If they do it won't be for quite a while." Which may make casting speculation this nothing more than pipe dreams perhaps. Possibly for the best.

The art of the onscreen murder was never staged with such graphic gusto as when Mary Harron filmed Christian Bale slicing and dicing his way through the excess of 80s Wall Street in American Psycho. Since then, the Canadian-born director has dabbled in television, filming episodes of Big Love and Six Feet Under, as well as feature The Notorious Bettie Page. Harron's latest project is an entry in the Fear Itself anthology (currently available on DVD), a television series broken down into 13 different episodes and featuring some of the biggest names working in horror today. Harron's Community follows a young married couple who move into a seemingly perfect neighborhood, and of course, the key word there is seemingly. We spoke to the director about the horror genre, Roman Polanski, and Tom Cruise's lifeless eyes.

Watching Rachel Dawes bop about in both Christopher Nolan-helmed Batman flicks, it dawned on me that despite the man's filmmaking gifts, Nolan's completely clueless when it comes to piecing together female characters with more than a single dimension. They just seem like an afterthought, dreamed up in post-production or something. Which is why when Katie Holmes assumed this role, it came off as nothing more than a cut-and-paste stock girlfriend. Even Hayden Panettiere could've done what Holmes did under Nolan's guidance. And when Maggie Gyllenhaal was brought on, it seemed like she was simply trying her best with the material. But it was material curiously lacking in at least a fraction of the angst that made performances by Christian Bale, Aaron Eckhart, and Heath Ledger so riveting. Odd that, because her character was so closely linked to two of those three men. Instead, her performance came off as a facsimile of Holmes' -- devoid of all moxie and disturbingly tepid. But Nolan's low expectations for his leading ladies should make Megan Fox's heart skip its first-in-forever beat. She's been tapped as Catwoman in part three of the Caped Crusader's hijinks.

Are you still holding onto that list of possible Batman replacements? Superb. Because we just may need to consult it, as Christian Bale stated that if Chris Nolan doesn't come back to direct the next installment of the superhero saga, then he won't return to star in it -- although the airtight legalese in his contract negotiations mandates it. But even if Nolan does back out, the franchise has a willing and able villain in Johnny Depp, who is interested in stepping in as the Riddler, a role previously occupied by Jim Carrey and initially by a guy that more recently played a character named Reverend Love on General Hospital.

Today marks that precious day of the year when mothers and fathers all over the world are expected to strap the nicest leash they can find onto their daughters' rhinestone chokers and drag them along to their places of employ. Once there, daughters can learn about the magical wonders of the working world, hopefully picking up a few effective expletives as well. Although today, little Helvetica might find herself accompanying daddy to a dim dive instead, where she'll sip on Shirley Temples while thumbing through that last Harry Potter book as daddy gets flushed on whiskey gingers and rails about loyalty, integrity, and the general bullshittery of being laid off. But Hollywood isn't beleaguered with boring unemployeds! Celebrities, unlike bland regular people, are still making money. Regardless, here are a few who I implore to call a sitter (Lindsay still needs a job!) before heading into the studio, the lot, or even the bar for a hard day's work.

● It’s a sad state of affairs when Ashton Kutcher has surpassed President Obama as the most-followed person on Twitter, with a million followers. Kutcher does update multiple times a day with ever-more-inane details of his life, while our President has been a tad distracted running the world and all. [CNN]
● In case we didn’t already know, Diane Kruger would like to remind us Brad Pitt has a "sweet family" and that Angelina Jolie is "beautiful." [Us]
● Lindsay Lohan is slowly crawling back to the top, or maybe it’s the middle; she's mounting a palimony case against ex Samantha Ronson. Lohan feels she’s entitled to a cut of Ronson’s DJ gigs, as they’ve gone up from $10,000 to $100,000. [PopCrunch]

Apparently we still resoundingly adore Christian Bale as Batman (don't look at me, I was seriously pulling for Gael García Bernal to succeed Bale as Gotham's prince of justice) despite his one-sided war of words. And because Bale may never live down that moment, he could actually be considering the doily-trimmed wisdom of a woman on how to soften his strident image. Drew Barrymore, via her Flower Films production company, is nudging the star to consider starring in a romantic comedy opposite her. Although this could be a harebrained idea of Barrymore's (she's admitted to crushing on the short-fused thesp), an insider who may or may not be Barrymore's Poltergeist co-star Zelda Rubinstein states, "Christian's reputation has been done no favors by the broadcasting of his rant ...He has a habit of going for very dark and moody roles so that's not helping his image either." Barrymore is doing all the legwork, looking for the right script. Here's a suggested rundown of 1990s rom-coms that the pair should consider for a redundant remake.

Yahoo has the new trailer for this summer's Terminator Salvation and OMFG, is it something. It single-handedly excuses Christian Bale's on-set freak out. It justifies Sam Worthington's out-of-nowhere casting in both this and James Cameron's upcoming Avatar. And it makes the case that Trent Reznor should stop releasing free albums online and start making some bank scoring movies. Terminator Salvation has just become the movie to beat this summer. Sorry Michael Bay, but it's true. Hit the jump for the tasty clip.

● Seth Meyers puts this whole Michael Phelps bong-gate into perspective. [SNL]
● Shepard Fairey, the man behind Obama’s "Hope" poster, has been arrested on tagging charges on the way to his first solo exhibit in Boston. It’s hard to keep a low profile as a guerrilla graffiti artist when your work is in the National Portrait Gallery. [LAT]
● In what is totally not a staged photo-op, Christian Bale shows he’s not "done" with his daughter. [JustJared]

It's a relief to know that few are taking Christian Bale's absurd man-trum sitting down. His gratuitous lobbing of F-bombs at a crew member on the set of Terminator: Salvation has no doubt made a considerable number of us forsake him as our caped crusader of choice. If anything, he's the spitting image of Two-Face, as he's doubtlessly more convincing than Aaron Eckhart in the role. Perhaps Batman director Christopher Nolan should eye a release date beyond 2011. Because ultimately we're a culture of fickle amnesiacs, and by then, more traumatic things will have happened. For instance, like Jennifer Connelly melting down after coming to terms with the fact that no, it wasn't a nightmare; she did star in this schlocky rom-com. And contrastingly, that'll make Bale's freakout look positively microscopic. Nolan may be firm in that release date, in which case, he'll need some help recasting Batman. Considering that most of the next film has already been cast, this shouldn't be too difficult.