With Batman returning to our screens in 2015, speculation is quickly turning to who will play the Dark Knight in the upcoming Superman vs Batman showdown.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Warner Brothers wants to find a “40-ish” actor to play the role.

The odds of Christian Bale coming back to the role appear to be rather long.  Bale has said that he’s not interesting in coming back to play the character again after working with director Christopher Nolan on a trilogy of Batman films.

The trade magazine reports on a couple of interesting choices for the role.

The first, and many say the leading candidate at this time, is actor Josh Brolin.  Brolin is well liked by Warner Brothers and has a good track record with the studio.

The second if actor Ryan Gosling.  Gosling is the youngest of the actors  in the running (he’s 32) and he starred with Brolin in Gangster Squad.   However, many say that Gosling’s acting ability makes him a solid candidate for the role.

True Blood’s Joe Manganiello, who is 36, is also on the short list.  According to reports, director Zack Snyder had targeted Manganiello for the role of Superman in this year’s Man of Steel, but the actor’s True Blood commitments kept him from being available to shoot the blockbuster.   That could work against Manganiello here as welll.

The other two actors in the mix are Richard Armitage who is part of TV’s Strike Back and plays Thorin in The Hobbit, Max Martini who is known for his work in TV shows like Revenge, Castle, and Hawaii Five-O and actor Matthew Goode who worked with Snyder in Watchmen.

However, with the script still being worked on by Snyder, we will warn that all of this is just rumor and speculation.  The final script could go in a different direction than any of these actors discussed.

The speculation stems from reports on how Sndyer intends to write the new big-screen Batman.   As we’ve previously reported, Snyder is borrowing from Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns for the epic showdown between the two DC icons.  Snyder has reportedly met with Miller to discuss the story and how it could be adapted for the silver screen.