Christopher Nolan Giving Up On Batman 3?

"The man that brought back fear and respect to the tarnished cape and cowl might be stepping back from the third Batman installment. It's almost hard to imagine a Bale Batman flick without Christopher Nolan.

Batman-on-Film is quoting its Batman film source — who is often spot-on about these things — claiming Nolan is ready to part with the WB on the next Batman movie, and there isn't much we can do about it, other than maybe threaten to blow up some hospitals.

'The death of Heath Ledger in January of 2008 rocked Mr. Nolan hard. So hard that Chris was convinced that TDK was going to be it for him and Batman on film.'

They're also saying that the loss not only impacted the director emotionally, but it also completely changed the story for the third film, which was set to feature the Joker heavily. The film now stands devoid of a main villain, and the writers [Goyer and Jonathan Nolan] are at 'square one.'

I hope they can get it together. Nolan did so much for the bat, I want to see him finish it out strong and as he always envisioned. He hasn't steered us wrong yet."

via io9