UPDATE: Matthew Modine, Tom Conti And Joey King Join The Dark Knight Rises Cast

Matthew Modine in The Dark Knight Rises
(Image credit: Warner Bros. Pictures)

UPDATE: Variety has updated their post and is reporting that Joey King, star of last summer's Ramona and Beezus has also joined the cast.

UPDATE #2: It has now been revealed that Modine will be playing a character named Nixon, though no further details are available.

Like many of you, I have spent a good portion of today staring at the first image of Tom Hardy as Bane in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises. Though the film isn't out until July 20, 2012, the fact that the viral campaign has already begun makes us feel like the movie is closer than ever, even though it only just started production. The cast is already stacked to the gills, with Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Juno Temple, and Josh Pence all joining the regulars from Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, but now the film has added two more names. Variety reports that Matthew Modine and Tom Conti have been added to the cast of the third Batman film. Just as we've seen with most casting announcements from the film, however, their character details are unknown.

This is starting to get ridiculous, no? Sure, The Dark Knight Rises will likely end up being one of the biggest films of all time, but at what point do you have too many characters walking around? Christopher and Jonah Nolan have never given me any reason to doubt their skills, but at some point you're casting the star of Full Metal Jacket to play "Man on Gotham Street Corner." That said, I am still loving all of the mystery surrounding this production and I hope the excitement stays at this level for the next 14 months.

Eric Eisenberg
Assistant Managing Editor

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.