Somehow we've already reached the "Orlando Bloom" stage of Batman casting rumors

With the announcement of Warner Bros. upcoming Batman Vs. Superman movie, and the confirmation that someone new would be stepping into the role vacated by Christian Bale, we were guaranteed that the Internet would spend these ensuing months pursuing its favorite pastime: being wrong about Batman. And so, because nature abhors a vacuum, yet is still oddly fond of Orlando Bloom, yesterday sparked the rumor that Orlando Bloom is up for the Batman role—a rumor that can be traced to an article in The Daily Express that was then amplified by The Huffington Post, Perez Hilton, and Access Hollywood, as well as the general malaise of the August news month.

And while it’s definitely enough to point out that the rumor sprang only from an unnamed “senior source,” possibly one with early-onset dementia, and that Bloom (in addition to being an odd, rather spindly choice for the part) is just one of the many names that have been suggested as the “odds-on favorite” (along with Ryan Gosling, Joe Mangianello, Armie Hammer, Josh Brolin, and all other male actors with appreciable muscle mass who aren’t dead), here’s the official denial from Bloom’s reps anyway: “This appears to be Internet gossip,” Bloom’s spokesperson said, in a perfectly utilitarian summation of the entire Batman casting process. On a positive note, seeing as it's already at the "Orlando Bloom" stage, we should burn through all the possible candidates by early September, and have our new Batman simply by the process of elimination.