Michael Caine may be in hot water again. He got in trouble when he confirmed rumors with MTV that Johnny Depp would play The Riddler and Philip Seymour Hoffman would play The Penguin in Batman 3. At the time, Caine said:
When Christopher [Nolan] said we were going to do The Dark Knight next, I didn't [know] what that meant in Batman terms. I said, "What's the story?" and he said The Joker. I said, "Oh, s**t! How are you going to top Jack [Nicholson]?" He said, "Well, I've cast Heath Ledger. And I went "Ha! I couldn't top Jack, but if anyone could, maybe Heath could." And he did.
I was with [a Warner Bros.] executive and I said, "Are we going to make another one?" They said yeah. I said, "How the hell are we going to top Heath?" And he says "I'll tell you how you top Heath — Johnny Depp as The Riddler and Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin." I said, "S**t, they've done it again!" [Laughs]
A year later, Caine is trying to do damage control, speaking with MTV again, and refuting those same newspaper rumors he was so quick to confirm.
Johnny Depp is great in anything, but there is no Johnny Depp in this Batman. They tell me in no uncertain terms.
Depp has claimed he'd "juggle" his schedule for the chance to appear in Batman 3, though there's little reason to worry about that now, since Caine says there's little chance that Batman 3 will see the light of day soon.
There is nobody, there's no script, there's nothing. It can't possibly be made before 2011 because [Nolan's upcoming thriller] Inception is such a big picture.
Of course, after all the trouble he made last year, Caine is currently the last man to know anything about Batman 3.
[They] won't tell me anything because I said this before. No one will tell me anything now. They say, "Don't tell Michael, he'll tell everybody."