[SymbioticFunction]

Best Batman villains? For me, Heath Ledger's Joker and Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent/Two-Face, two great performances in just one film. Must confess that I've never really been a fan of Jack Nicholson's version of the Joker (or the film itself).

Was a great shame that Ledger died, whilst The Dark Knight Rises was fairly decent (but underwhelming), it would have been a hell of a lot better with the Joker also appearing in it. I think that the decision not to try recasting the role was a wise one.

I remember reading that the original Goyer/Nolan plan or franchise outline was to have the following:

Scarecrow in the first film
Joker in the second film
Two-Face (and Joker) in the third film

The concept was a trilogy of fear with those 3 villains and Batman himself. I guess that Nolan decided to go for broke with the second film and use both Joker and Two-Face earlier on.

I think that the death of Ledger and the on-screen death of Dent kinda painted Christopher Nolan & David S. Goyer into a corner. Must have been tough to come up with a story/script for a sequel to The Dark Knight and that third movie unfortunately dropped the 'fear' concept.