Heath Ledger Will Not Appear in 'Dark Knight Rises'

DC Comics/Warner Bros.

Heath Ledger will not appear in The Dark Knight Rises. And we heard it from director Christopher Nolan himself.

At an awards season party last night for Inception, we asked the filmmaker about a report on a New Zealand website saying that Nolan and Warner Bros. were thinking of inserting unused footage of Ledger as the Joker into the movie. As with anything connected to Batman and Nolan, the rumor quickly spread around the globe.

But Nolan and his wife/producing partner Emma Thomas both swatted down the rumor to Heat Vision in a chat last night.

“I heard the rumor,” said Thomas. “We’re not doing that.”

Nolan also denied that Ledger would show up in the new film. The script isn’t even completed yet, he said, and Nolan believes that Ledger’s performance as the Joker should be contained to the 2008 movie.