That Michael Caine is such a rascal. Earlier this month, the English thespian claimed he read somewhere that Johnny Depp and Philip Seymour Hoffman are being considered as the Riddler and the Penguin, respectively, in the next Batman movie. Now in an interview with MTV.com, Caine does a 180-degree turn.

"There is nobody, there's no script, there's nothing," Caine said about the follow-up to The Dark Knight. He added that it could not possibly be made prior to 2011 because Inception, the next project from Batman Begins and Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan, is "such a big picture."

The actor, currently promoting his upcoming thriller Harry Brown, played Batman/Bruce Wayne’s butler and confidant Alfred Pennyworth in both revamped Batman movies. Although Caine remains very interested in where the franchise goes next, ever since he spoke out about Depp and Hoffman’s possible involvement, he’s been effectively cut off.

"[They] won't tell me anything because I said this before," he joked about the perceived embargo.

Interestingly, even if Depp isn’t currently scheduled to star in the next Batman movie, that hardly means Caine doesn’t think he’d be a great Riddler, which raises the question: Could this be part of some elaborate strategy to coax the Pirates of the Caribbean star into joining the cast? Or perhaps it’s carefully-calculated misdirection, exactly the kind of thing Pennyworth would do for his vigilante boss? (We want to point out that, in prior interviews, Depp sounded very amenable to playing the Riddler.)
 
"Johnny Depp is great in anything, but there is no Johnny Depp in this Batman," Caine said with a smile. "They tell me in no uncertain terms."

We’re not convinced, and we’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, if Caine's remarks are accurate, it opens up the door to not only the possibility of another actor playing The Riddler, but of other villains stepping in.

Or perhaps two villains entering the mix, as in The Dark Knight.

But which Batman villains would be most effective, yet accessible to an audience, in this darker, more serious franchise that Nolan has crafted? Riddler could certainly be made crafty and sinister, while Penguin seems too cartoonish and ridiculous.

There's an enormous roster from which to choose, of course, but staying within the most traditionally recognized, we keep wondering if Catwoman remains a legitimate possibility. She remains one of the few great female characters from the golden age of comic books.

A complex female villain would not only be fun, but would change things up a bit from the male-as-hero, female-as-victim stereotype of the first two films, whilst adding some possible romantic tension of a different sort into Batman/Bruce Wayne's exploits (after all, Rachel Dawes is now permanently out of the picture). Handled with finesse and sophistication, it could create some additional moral ambiguities for the Dark Knight.

Forget the rumors about Megan Fox playing Catwoman. Forget, too — though it's probably easy to do — Halle Berry's appalling awful turn as Catwoman in 2004. What we're talking about is crafting a character who is as dark and psychologically damaged as Batman himself; one part Bonnie (of Bonnie and Clyde), one part Catherine Tramell (Basic Instinct), maybe a little bit of Fiona (Thunderball's Luciana Paluzzi)...and capable of using her sexy, sultry charms to seduce with nefarious purpose.

Another option that has appeal to some of us around here, is to bring Batman closer to the real world than the comic world, and create a new villain from the ground up. One who is far more menacing in a "real life" sort of way. One could imagine someone like Russell Crowe as a sort of global mafia kingpin/drug czar who is a bit twisted. Or something like that.

What do you think...? Tell us your opinions on best choices for the next Batman villain below.