Despite rumors to the contrary, it looks like Christopher Nolan may now indeed be signed to direct a sequel to The Dark Knight. The newest edition of Production Weekly went out this morning, and they list Nolan as the official director of Batman 3, along with Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Gary Oldman in the cast.

They further confirm some of the rumors which were swirling around earlier this week, listing Batman 3 as slated to go into pre-production in February of 2009. On Wednesday IESB.net attempted to debunk the rumors of the film’s imminent pre-production when they were told by a WB exec that the film “is not in pre-production and is not getting ready to shoot”. That’s not necessarily wrong. It’s not in pre-production and it’s not getting ready to shoot… right now. It will however be in pre-production this coming February.

Production Weekly is not normally prone to exaggeration. In theory, they get all of their information directly from official sources and not internet rumors. Still, it’s somewhat surprising that Warner Bros. would give that information to Production Weekly before they’re able to make a big, splashy announcement themselves. This Batman franchise is sort of a big deal after all.