Warner Brothers has officially set a date to release their follow-up to Christopher Nolan‘s The Dark Knight, currently known simply as Batman 3.

Since we witnessed The Dark Knight in the summer of 2008 (has it been that long already!?), people have been talking and wondering about the next movie, whether Nolan would do it, and who, oh who would play what new roles. Well, on July 20, 2012 — four long years later — we’ll get to see it for ourselves. Unfortunately, this means fans, who have just waited two years while Nolan finished Inception, will have to wait two more years to see the Bat back at it.

Though the wait is indeed long, now that Inception is all but complete and the script for Batman 3 is in the construction stages, it shouldn’t be too long before we’re being showered in story details, character inclusion, and all the delicious casting morsels your wittle tummy can handle.

This now means that next summer and the summer of ’12 are going to be ridiculous for movie fans. JUST in terms of comic book movies, Marvel has Thor and The First Avenger: Captain America hitting next year, and in 2012 we have Batman 3, the reboot of Spider-Man, The Avengers, among others.

One thing to keep in mind is that these days, release dates change more often than we can keep track of. Budgetary issues, production scheduling conflicts, and whatever else can happen could very well see this date change, but for now, this is the one to mark down.

[Source: Heat Vision]