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Well the folks at Warner Bros. gave some geeks a good time over the weekend. As we’ve reported earlier regarding the campaign signs for Harvey Dent, another website popped up over the weekend - I Believe in Harvey Dent Too - and after much shenanigans it revealed the first image of Heath Ledger as The Joker.

Gotta say, this is much scarier than Jack Nicholson’s incarnation. Ledger looks much more John Wayne Gacy serial killer scary with the scarring around the mouth and the haphazard lipstick smear and black blotches over the eyes. Nightmares dude, nightmares.

Consider this a big ole roundup of stuff. The one that caught our eye the most was that Lost’s Nestor Carbonell, otherwise known as the age defying Richard Alpert, has been cast in Chris Nolan’s The Dark Knight.

Carbonell will play the mayor of Gotham City. Carbonell also has the fall drama, “Cane” lined up for CBS, which means that next week guarantees his fate has been sealed with The Others.

“Cane,” stars Jimmy Smits as a Miami drug dealer of sorts. Should be worth a watch, until you realize it’s on CBS. Regardless, we love Carbonell. He’s got the creepy down, but we really love him for his turn as Batmanuel in the short lived live action “Tick” show.

Actually, we ran this story as an excuse to dig up some old clips of Batmanuel and The Tick. The Tick was only around for about 13 episodes on FOX, but man what a show.

Can you guess which one is Batmanuel?

Craig fights from Bond-age

Also, Variety reports that Daniel Craig, hot off kicking asses as James Bond, will team up with Ed Zwick (Blood Diamond, The Last Samurai, Glory) for a World War II action-drama about a band of Jewish resistance fighters. Defiance is based on a true story.

And the fun doesn’t stop there!

Jason Bateman and Joe Carnahan will team up again after flirting with each other in Smokin’ Aces. Universal bought the pitch about two con artist brothers and their family revenge business. Sounds like it could be cool. Bateman was one of the best things about the tonally challenged Carnahan flick. We say tonally, cause it would have been awesome to get a gritty Narc type flick, but instead it was cartoonish and over the top. We still love Carnahan though and hope he and Bateman hit this one out of the park.

I’ll take that Bronte-saurus burger

And for you ladies out there, a biopic is in the works based on the lives of the famed English novelists The Bronte sisters. Can you name all three? Bonus points for knowing Charlotte and Emily, but if you guessed the third and lesser-known sister was Anne, they you’re either an English major in college or just really love Victorian English novels way too much. One can only assume that the Bronte sisters weren’t nearly as attractive as Michelle Williams, Evan Rachel Wood or Bryce Dallas Howard but I guess that’s a moot point now. No word on which of the three actresses will play which doomed writer, but seeing as how I know absolutely nothing about the Bronte family it wouldn’t matter much even if I did know who was playing Emily, Charlotte or Anne.

We’re beginning to get the feeling that this may be the summer of The Dark Knight. Already photoshopped photos, rumors, and spy pics are running like a gang of bulls through the streets of Pampalona. Which, given the love and adoration for Chris Nolan’s first stab at Batman only makes a lot of sense.

Eric Roberts, brother to Julia, father to Emma, and maybe one of our top five actors of all time has just been cast as a mob boss in The Dark Knight. No word on his character, but consider this just awesome. Cause here’s the thing? We’ve never realized why Mr. Roberts never got the love his sister did? You know? This was the same guy who got nominated for an Academy Award in 1985 for his role in Runaway Train and lost out to some old dude from Cocoon.

Sometimes when there were no cartoons on Saturday morning, we’d throw on our karate outfit and watch Best of the Best, or even if we were feeling frisky throw on Werewolves of Wallstreet. Anyway, we’re glad that an Eric Roberts rennaissance is about to take place, between this news, his role on hit television shows, “Heroes” and “The L Word,” and his screen time in the criminally undersen A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. Not to mention star turns in videos for Mariah Carey and The Killers. Did we mention he was in an extended commerical for Ski-Doos? Oh yeah.

Looks like that early look at Heath Ledger in makeup as The Joker was nothing more than a fanboy with too much time on his hands. Well, it was still a cool photo and knowing some fanboy can do that, well one can imagine what Chris Nolan and company will be able to do. Pretty impressive what you can do with Photoshop and a little time on your hands. Anyway head over here for the sources and methods employed by the dude with too much time on his hand. Cause his other hand is no doubt holding his Boba Fett doll very tightly.

Joker photo courtesy of Filipes Lopes.

AICN got burned earlier for putting up a photoshopped image of Heath Ledger as The Joker. In that photo, Ledger looked an awful lot like Brandon Lee in The Crow. Now, they’ve got what they claim to be an actual makeup test for Ledger.

In the photo below, you can see that he has scarring on the side of his mouth, probably from self-inflicted wounds to create that smiling clown look. Also, what is interesting, is Ledger looks very much like a person who is just finding their way as The Joker.

He looks like he could be a common criminal, just getting a taste for the theatrical. A far cry from the over-the-top clownish, crazy Jack Nicholson version in the original Tim Burton Batman. Either way, this photo is light years better than what we saw the other day, those spy photos from a distance.

So Chris Nolan is stepping up to the Batman plate once again. Filming has begun in Chicago and from early reports from Superhero Hype, it looks as if they are filming a bank robbery involving The Joker. Maggie Gyllenhaal is in as Rachel Dawes and damn it we’re still smarting that she should’ve been Rachel Dawes from the get go. Whatever.

Some spy photos are beginning to leak with a peek at Heath Ledger as The Joker. Everyone, and by everyone I mean movie dorks like us, have been holding their breath to see how Nolan would tackle Batman’s arch nemesis. Would he go for the classic comic book look? Or would he go ultra realistic and serious? No one really knew what to expect. We’re still not sure how Nolan’s Joker will be, but we still have a boner over the shot when Lt. Gordon turns over the playing card at it’s a joker and then he talks about escalation. Yeah, you know the one. What we do know is that Ledger will sport the green hair.

The Dark Knight is scheduled for a July 18, 2008 release.

Is that a utility belt in your pocket? Or are you just excited for The Dark Knight?