It's about Bat-freaking Bat-time.

Batman has been selected for a Batman theatrical movie. Surprisingly, only one wire service used "Holy Casting!" as the lead sentence.

I thought Christian Bale was good in "American Psycho" and "Reign of Fire." His mouth and chin should be able to play Batman's mouth and chin with ease.

He's not a pre-teen poster boy like most of the other names that were bandied about for the role.

He's been in the mix for over a year on a half-dozen Batman movie things, so I'm glad they finally picked him instead of waiting on Nicolas Cage to turn it down.

This is the first positive thing there has been to say about a DC Comics movie in . . . well, how long ago was "Batman Returns"?

1992! 11 years of anguish! (And the things we said about 'Batman Returns' weren't all kissy and smoochy. At least, until we saw "Batman Forever.")

The movie's director and screenwriter were already known: Christopher Nolan, the "Memento" guy will direct, and David Goyer, the "Blade" guy who also co-wrote the "Justice Society of America" comic is the writing guy.

So from there, we know that these people can turn out non-Schumacherian work.

They really need to get the guy who played Batman in the "Dead End" short film to do something. Because he looks like he can whoop an ass.

"Batman: Dead End" proved that you don't need a lot of money or a lot of time to do a great Bat-movie. But Warner has been toodling away on a Batman movie for so long that you'd think they actually knew what they were doing.

So far there seems to be reason for hopefulness. I remember when Batman movies were something we all looked forward to. Those were innocent times, when Prince was still Prince and hadn't changed his name or changed it back.

I hope that his Bat-nipples don't show.