Maybe Joseph Gordon-Levitt Isn't Alberto Falcone In 'The Dark Knight Rises' After All

Over the weekend, Variety reported that the long speculated role Joseph Gordon-Levitt would be playing in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises was Alberto Falcone, son of Gotham mob boss Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson). Variety, a usually well-resourced and accurate publication simply cited "insiders." Now, Entertainment Weekly has cited "a source close to the situation" saying Gordon-Levitt won't be playing Alberto Falcone.

Who's right? Your guess is as good as ours. It's certainly time for Warner Brothers to come out and make it official though, unless they're doing this on purpose. Read both sides of the story and some rumor control speculation after the break.

Variety's original story said the following late Friday night:

Now that Joseph Gordon-Levitt is set to reteam with his "Inception" director Christopher Nolan on "The Dark Knight Rises," insiders tell Variety that Gordon-Levitt will play Alberto Falcone, the son of Mafia chieftain Carmine Falcone, the character Tom Wilkinson played in "Batman Begins."

But Entertinament Weekly wrote this on Monday:

A source close to the situation says that recent reports that Gordon-Levitt will play Alberto Falcone (a.k.a. the Holiday Killer) — the son of former mob kingpin, Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson) — are incorrect. So, Batman fans: Begin the re-speculation now!

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Whether or not Gordon-Levitt plays Falcone, Robin, the Riddler or Batman himself isn't really the issue here. Much more disturbing is that two very well-respected publications with well-placed and reliable sources are getting completely conflicting information. The most obvious conclusion is that one of these sources is simply wrong. However, it's much scarier to think of the possibility that both sources believed themselves to be correct. EW and Variety don't just run rumors unless they're from very well-trusted sources. I worked at Entertainment Weekly and researchers called me to double check the spelling of my name. They're very careful.

That means it's a distinct possibility both sources think they're right and, maybe, Warner Brothers and Nolan's camp are purposely leaking out incorrect information, either to screw with blogs like ours, or to find out who is passing information along to the trades. It would be like putting a watermark on a DVD of a movie and then that watermark appearing on a torrent site. You'd know who leaked it.

Is that conclusion just madness or do you think Variety or EW just was misinformed and wanted the big Batman scoop?