As he puts the finishing touches to his summer blockbuster Inception, Christopher Nolan has given an interview to the Los Angeles Times where he's been talking about the direction he's looking to go with both Superman and Batman. It's the first full interview he's given since it was revealed that Warner Bros was looking for him to oversee the latest reboot of Superman (and his film will be standing apart from the others, and won't tie as closely to the earlier movies as Superman Returns tried to do). And he's had plenty of interesting things to say.

Nolan reveals that he hadn't been actively looking to pursue the Superman project, and that the reason he got involved came about when he hit a roadblock on the story for his third potential Batman film. At that point, writer David Goyer - who has worked with Nolan on his Batman movies - revealed to Nolan how he would deal with a Superman movie.

"He basically told me, ‘I have this thought about how you would approach Superman.' I immediately got it, loved it and thought: That is a way of approaching the story I've never seen before that makes it incredibly exciting. I wanted to get Emma [Thomas, Nolan's wife and producer] and I involved in shepherding the project right away and getting it to the studio and getting it going in an exciting way."

And that's seemingly what happened. Nolan won't be directing the Superman movie, that much seems certain, and the specific plot details are also being kept under wraps. He did say, however, that "A lot of people have approached Superman in a lot of different ways. I only know the way that has worked for us that's what I know how to do." He seemed to rule out any interest in crossing the worlds of Batman and Superman over, too, which is likely to nix any thoughts of Nolan doing a Justice League movie.

As for the next Batman film? He still hasn't confirmed that he's directing it, but it seems extremely likely that he is doing. After all, he did say in the interview, "My brother [Jonathan Nolan] is writing a script for me and we'll wait to see how it turns out.... He's struggling to put it together into the epic story that you want it to be."

And just what's that story going to involve? "Without getting into specifics, the key thing that makes the third film a great possibility for us is that we want to finish our story, and in viewing it as the finishing of a story rather than infinitely blowing up the balloon and expanding the story. We have a great ensemble, that's one of the attractions of doing another film, since we've been having a great time for years."

Inception needs to be finished first, of course, and that's heading into cinemas on 16th July. It's, from where we're sitting, the boldest and riskiest project of the summer, and we can't wait to see it,

In the meantime, here's the really interesting L.A. Times interview. It's well worth a read. And the next Batman should be in cinemas in 2012...