Is there another surprise in The Dark Knight?

Given the quality of villain who already seems to be turning up in Christopher Nolan’s forthcoming The Dark Knight, it seems that there wouldn’t really be room for too many more.

Yet according to the cast list, which has now been uploaded to the IMDB, Cillian Murphy is set to reprise his role as The Scarecrow/ Dr Jonathan Crane. Now granted, the IMDB is hardly the oracle of everything that’s right in the world, but on matters such as these, it doesn’t seem to be too far off the mark. Given reports that circulated last year about Murphy seemingly being spotted on the set for the film, then there could well be some substance to this.

This could, of course, lead to a fear that the film could be packed with too many baddies, but we're not unduly concerned. Nolan's take on Gotham City is of a place where these characters exist on a day-to-day basis, and we saw in Batman Begins that the villain - no matter which one - doesn't have to be a screen-gobbling centrepiece to work.

Of course, we don’t have to wait too long to find out now how all this will pan out, given that The Dark Knight is heading to our screens on 25 July, which at the time of writing is still marked down as a week after most other countries in the world seem to get it. Hmmm.