Let me make something clear right out of the gate: I don’t believe this for a second. This story comes from Bang Media, a celebrity news syndicator with an extremely spotty track record.

With that disclaimer out of the way, it is now my responsibility to tell you that Bang Media claims Christian Bale will play Dr. Strange, in the recently announced Marvel comic adaptation of the same name. Their source tells them a deal could be made within weeks, locking Bale up for the part.

Though Dr. Strange is a superhero property and in the comics he has in fact interacted with Batman, he couldn’t possibly be more different than the Dark Knight. Batman is a detective, rooted in the world of logic, reality, and cold, hard reason. Dr. Strange is quite literally a sorcerer. The closest Bale has come to playing a similar character was in Chris Nolan’s pre-Dark Knight movie The Prestige, where Bale plays mysterious magician Alfred Borden.

If this did happen, you’d have to wonder what this might mean for a Dark Knight sequel. Christopher Nolan is wandering around in a daze unsure if he wants to do another and now we have Christian Bale cheating on Batman to play some other superhero. All is not right in the world. Cut the crap guys, we need Batman 3 right now!