One minute Christopher Nolan was quietly slaving away over a hot editing machine, making the final nips and tucks to his latest release, duelling magicians movie The Prestige. The next, he’d been accosted by several websites, tied to a chair and forced to answer questions about his sequel plans for Batman Begins.

Asked about The Dark Knight’s tone, he stresses that the quality should remain for the second Bat-outing: “I think what people responded to most about Batman Begins is how different it was from their expectations. So we would be foolish to not recognize that and attempt to do something very different in the sequel. I certainly wouldn't have, you know, any interest in trying to repeat the experience that the film already made because I think, particularly being an origin story, it's a very unique thing; very singular. My interest in the sequel is to move on from there and do something quite different.”

And for those of you hoping for more action, he’s been thinking about your needs as well… “We certainly put a lot of action into Batman Begins even though it didn't involve Batman until 50 minutes in. So certainly we are free to put Batman into action earlier on. But if you look at the rhythm of action movies, it’s very complicated because there is a limit actually to how much action is in the film, how you have to have a particular ebb and flow to what actually works. Batman Begins is pretty stuffed to be honest, but it didn't all get to involve that character, because it was Bruce Wayne as Batman because of the origin and that we don't have to do.”

Finally, he attempted to dismiss the rumours about Philip Seymour Hoffman or Ryan Philippe cropping up as The Penguin, and shot down the idea that Sean Penn passed on the chance to play Harvey Dent: “No truth to that rumour. All interesting ideas, though…” Suspiciously coy, if you ask us.