Heath Ledger is The Joker?

No prob!

Say it ain't so! This would be death to the reinvigorated franchise!

Why would it be the death of the franchise, exactly?

This is totally effin stupid! The Joker is the definition of a supervillian, you cant drop a newbie in a role for a vet, or a quriky actor. For gods sake look at that Hoffman ordeal. it did not help dropping an oscar wienner in that crapfest to save MI:III, and it wont work with this as well.

The choice is a surprise, but he's a good actor so I can't really get upset. He could be good. There were some truly scary names being thrown around at one time like Robin Williams. I would personally like to see someone like Chris Ecceslton formerly of Dr. WHO.

Yeah, I was freaked out when I first read about this, but it has marinated a little and I am not as worried as before. I think this may give some insight of the direction they are going with the character. Something tells me he isn't going to be as over the top of a character as can be visualized. Jack Nicholson did a great job balancing the craziness without overacting. Now Tommy Lee Jones, as 2-face, is an example of how it is possible to over do the craziness lol (but in Tommy's defense, Joel was the one that directed him to do that... Either way you get my point lol)

Before I got off point, I was talking about the direction of the character. Nolan has done a great job of putting the Batman universe in 'reality' so to speak. The way the villains were portrayed in 'Begins' was not in anyway 'campy' or 'unrealistic'. Something tells me they are going to go for a really sadistic killer type feel for the Joker.

We will just have to see...

I think Heath Ledger *could* turn out to be a great choice. He's a good actor, I think he could pull off a good Joker evil grin, and he could bring out the true psychotic-criminal-mastermind aspect of the Joker that makes him so menacing in some of the darker Batman comics.

However, the Brokeback Mountain connection means we are in for an endless series of gay-themed Batman jokes.

I for one am mildly pleased with this casting. I hated Heath Ledger in A KNight's Tale and The Patriot, but he has done some good character work (The Brother's Grimm for example). This is not MI: III which was horrible from the get go. If the same tone is kept and Ledger can balance the insanity and evil of the Joker it could be very very good indeed.

Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Yeah, I don't see this as a bad thing either. Heath is a pretty good actor. My only problem is that it is hard to judge, because I have never seen him play a bad guy. He may be great, but he`s never played a dark, psychotic character. The darkest character he`s played to date was the priest in the Order.
I do see the direction that Nolan is going and at the very least we may get a cool fight scene, because with Ledger, Joker will be a little more of a physical character then if someone like Williams played him.
What I would really like to see is what Nolan's Joker is going to look like. Hopefully, more The Killing Joke style Joker. I guess we will see in a few months or so.