Who would be a good on-screen Riddler?

[Kibzie]

Gorshin obviously owned it, but I think Jim Carey was the obvious choice out of all the actors working at that particular time. I feel the same way about Danny DeVito as the Penguin. It's just too bad that in both cases there were things that went wrong. With the Penguin, there was no reason to make him into a deformed mutant. And with the Riddler, well, the Schumacher films were just plain bad, with bad scripts and bad this and bad that. Despite those things though, both men did wonderful jobs with what they had to work with.

By the way, since the very beginning of the Nolanverse I've hoped to see a certain portrayal of the Riddler and I'm curious what everyone else might think of it. With Nolan's realistic approach, might the Riddler have worked being portrayed as very similar to the Zodiac killer from real life? Both sent clues to taunt the authorities. So maybe less on the giggling and the costume covered in question marks, and more on the intellect that goes into the riddles themselves? I think it would have been a great idea.

Totally agree with this!

I'd love to see either Michael C. Hall, as mentioned earlier, or Edward Norton play The Riddler. I think both give off a dominating sense of intelligence that, even when you completely disagree with what they're saying, have a way of convincing you that they're right. The Riddler has that narcissistic, ego-fuelled motive to solely prove to others that he is smarter than them. If you combined what Kensei said, referring to the Zodiac, and an incredibly intelligent performance, you'd have the perfect Riddler in my eyes.

[Kibzie]

I've put this forth, but never really gotten any serious reaction either pro or con. What if the Riddler was portrayed as very similar to the Zodiac killer from real life? Both wore costumes and both sent mysterious clues to taunt the authorities. The Zodiac had a symbol he signed all his letters with and which adorned his costume (a cross and circle that looked like a gunsight), and the Riddler has his question mark. The only big difference is that the Riddler has never been overtly murderous unless one got in the way of his thievery.

Sorry for the two posts in a row, feeling greedy.

I agree that The Riddler wasn't overtly murderous, but he did seem to always be willing to do whatever he seemed was 'fair'. In the Batman: TAS, his opening episode has him kidnap the man that stole his idea to make millions. Though sanitised somewhat for kids TV, you'd expect The Riddler to have murdered him. I guess you could have Riddler committing crimes with puzzles attached, much like andthegunslinger suggested with the Die Hard with a Vengeance reference, but it is solely a way to have the police and Batman running around like idiots whilst he focused on his real target. I guess it could mirror the Washington snipers, in that they killed a load of people to disguise the fact that they only wanted to kill one specific person.