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Despite the fevered speculation about the future of Batman in the wake of the spectacular success of The Dark Knight two years ago, we've been given very little in the way of hard facts about the future of the series.

That is, until now.

A new interview with director Christopher Nolan, in which he talks about his plans for the third film, as well as his overseeing role on Superman, appears to outline where the man who brought Batman back from the horrors of the Joel Schumacher years sees the character going.

And it may not make comfortable reading for execs at studio Warner Brothers.

Nolan, while characteristically tight-lipped, confirms that the third episode of his Batman series will be the final instalment, and will mostly feature the characters and actors who appeared in the first two films. "We have a great ensemble, that's one of the attractions of doing another film, since we've been having a great time for years," he told the LA Times.

Nolan refused to confirm whether there would be another main villain for the third film, saying only that Mr Freeze would not be appearing. But his comments over the returning cast make me wonder whether he and screenwriting brother Jonathan Nolan might have plumped for a scenario in which the story continues straight on from the end of The Dark Knight, in which Batman was left running for his life with the forces of Gotham at his heels, rather than a distinct new episode with a new bad guy to be outwitted.

"I'm very excited about the end of the film, the conclusion, and what we've done with the characters," Nolan said. "My brother has come up with some pretty exciting stuff. Unlike the comics, these things don't go on forever in film and viewing it as a story with an end is useful. Viewing it as an ending, that sets you very much on the right track about the appropriate conclusion and the essence of what tale we're telling. And it harkens back to that priority of trying to find the reality in these fantastic stories. That's what we do."

Ending it at the trilogy point will certainly help give the series a cohesive form (provided the film-makers get the final episode right). But one wonders what the reaction will be at Warner Bros, where that could presumably be read as shutting down a successful franchise just as it has got going. One can only assume that the movie would end with Batman either dead (unlikely, even in Nolan's dark universe) or retired. But even if Nolan does bring his tale to a satisfactory conclusion, who's to say that the studio won't attempt to revive the character in some form of continuation of the story, with a new director at the reins?

Short of saying that he will definitely be directing Batman 3, Nolan did admit that his brother, Jonathan Nolan, was currently working on the Batman 3 script for him.

"My brother is writing a script for me and we'll wait to see how it turns out.... He's struggling to put it together into the epic story that you want it to be. Without getting into specifics, the key thing that makes the third movie a great possibility for us is that we want to finish our story. And in viewing it as the finishing of a story rather than infinitely blowing up the balloon and expanding the story," he concluded.