Going into The Dark Knight, fans thought they had it all figured out: Aaron Eckhart would play an unblemished District Attorney Harvey Dent for the entire run of the film, and only at the end have his face horrifically scarred and becoming the villain known as Two-Face for the next installment. So when Dent transformed midway through the film and the last few minutes featured the man’s funeral, said expectations went right out the window. Even Eckhart wasn’t sure of exactly what happened to Dent, getting confirmation from director Christopher Nolan after the fact when asking if he would be back for the next film. But just because a character is dead doesn’t mean they are written off completely.

Eckhart was on hand for a press conference earlier this afternoon at Comic Con for Battle: Los Angeles and when the inevitable question was raised, Eckhart confirmed he is in the same boat as the rest of us.

First of all, you guys know as much as I do about the next Batman...Obviously Heath was supposed to reprise the role [of The Joker], Two Face obviously died in the last one, so I don't know. I'm in the dark as much as everybody else about that. I suspect that they're not going to have The Joker in the next one.

It shouldn’t be news that they won’t recast The Joker (see here and here), but it would actually make a great deal of sense to have Eckhart return in some form. Be it as a flashback or as a corpse in a box, the death of Harvey Dent is exactly what causes Batman to become an outlaw as he is forced to take the blame for Dent’s crimes. He most likely won’t return to cause havoc as the duplicitous coin-flipper but it would make sense for Nolan to make that call.

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