Excuse me while I break out the smelling salts.

Moviehole.net reports that Christian Bale is in talks to reunite with his Batman Begins director Christopher Nolan for a new film called The Prestige.

Bale will be joining Hugh Jackman, who has already signed on to the project, according to Hollywood Reporter. The two superheroes will leave behind the alter egos of their Batman and X-Men franchises to play rival magicians in turn-of-the-century London.

Their competition for trade secrets is so intense that it leads to murder. Apparently “The Prestige” refers to the residue left after a magician’s successful trick. Yeah, I have no idea what that means either, but I’ll let it go, because – Batman and Wolverine on the same screen!

The movie will be based on Christopher Priest’s 1996 novel of the same name. Nolan’s brother Jonathan will write the script. (He also wrote the short story on which Christopher’s Nolan’s breakout movie Memento was based, so that’s fine by me.)

Shooting will begin in January with a budget in the $40 million range.

According to Guardian Unlimited, Bale is currently in Thailand filming Rescue Dawn, the story of a fighter pilot who is shot down on a mission during the Vietnam War. Jackman is working on X-Men 3, or, as I like to call it, X Cubed. He also stars in Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain, which has no official release date scheduled.






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