Gary Oldman was at Comic-Con today promoting his upcoming movie “The Book of Eli” and he actually said something about “Batman 3″. According to Gary, the next “Batman” film will start shooting next year.

While this might excite fandom across cyberspace, this really isn’t anything we all didn’t know. Chris Nolan is currently filming “Inception” and once that wraps, he’ll make a decision regarding the next “Batman” movie. If he decides not to make it, you can bet WB will get another director to sign on five minutes after Chris passes. So, either way, a new “Batman” movie is getting made next year. More info as we get it.

Opening today is director Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies”. The film is set during the Depression-era’s great crime wave and it’s the story of the government’s attempt to stop legendary criminals John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd. This operation transformed the FBI into the first federal police force. By now you’ve seen the trailers and commercials, so you know the cast is filled with famous faces like Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard, Channing Tatum and David Wenham.

Anyway, to help promote the film, our partners at Omelete sent me to cover the international press day and I was able to participate in a small press conference with Christian Bale. During the interview, Christian talked about making “Public Enemies”, the research he did to prepare to play Melvin Purvis, what he’s working on now, and people tried to get him to compare all the different director’s he’s worked with to one another. If you’re a fan of this great actor, you’ll love the interview. The transcript and audio is after the jump:

We were all working on an assumption that Christopher Nolan would return to direct the third (or seventh, depending on how you want to count them) “Batman” movie because “The Dark Knight” made an ungodly sum of money and because trilogies are mandatory for all creative personnel involved unless they’re actors playing villains and screenwriters.  But directors and leading actors are all required to keep coming back to play the same role or else the fans will start with the whaling and the gnashing of the teeth.

But now such whaling and gnashing may well begin as Batman-on-Film is reporting that Nolan returning for a third go-around with Bats is far from a done deal.  You see, in order for it to be a done deal, Warner Brothers has to drive a dump truck full of non-sequential, unmarked bills to Nolan’s home and leave the money on his front porch.  They have not done so and thus there is some “indecision” from Nolan’s camp, especially since there’s no story for the third film as the original plan was to have Heath Ledger return as The Joker.  Wait to blow it for everyone, Heath.*

As for when we’ll even seen the next “Batman” movie, BOF’s source says that while Nolan is developing ideas with his brother Jonathan and David Goyer, the next film wouldn’t hit theatres until at least 2012 and possibly even 2013.  I would bet more for 2012 as Nolan could begin pre-production on “Batman 3″ while he’s doing post-production on his current film, “Inception”.  I’m sure WB will do whatever it takes to bring Nolan back but personally, since there’s a 99% chance he won’t be able to top himself with a third film, it may be better to hand it over to someone else and a different vision of Gotham City.

Begin fanboy revolt in 3…2…1…

*2 soooon!