July 20, 2012 has been staked out by Warner Brothers for the release in the next chapter in the Batman film saga directed by Christopher Nolan.

The Heatvision Blog at Hollywood Reporter reminds us that 2012 will be a very good year for geek movies in their article:

With Batman 3 on the docket, summer 2012 is shaping up to be one of the greater geek movie seasons. Marvel’s “The Avengers” is slated to come out May 4, board game adaptation “Battleship” leaves port May 25, the “Star Trek” sequel beams up June 29, and the rebooted “Spider-Man” swings into theaters on July 3.

I have no idea what the hell they were thinking by putting Battleship on that list of geek movies, but nonetheless, it’s still shaping up to be pretty much the best year geeks have had in a long time.  (Though 2011 will give us Thor and Captain America, among others….)  But Avengers, Spider-man, Star Trek AND Batman?  All we need now is a Star Wars film and it would be the best summer ever.

Now that there’s a release date, let’s see how long it takes for all the absurd casting rumours to come back.  I give it a week before another Johnny Depp as Riddler rumour starts.  What do you guys think?