Nolan's Batman 3 Title

[Tribal Warfare]

Batman sequel 'Rises' again

LOS ANGELES - THE next Batman sequel has a title: The Dark Knight Rises. Distributor Warner Bros. confirmed the name for director Christopher Nolan's third adventure about the DC Comics vigilante hero, which follows Batman Begins in 2005 and The Dark Knight in 2008.

The Dark Knight Rises is due in theaters July 20, 2012. Bucking Hollywood's current wave of 3-D movies, Nolan is not planning to shoot the film in 3-D.

Warner Bros had agreed with Nolan's argument that the sequel should resist the 3-D craze, the director told the Los Angeles Times' Hero Complex blog, which first reported the title.

Nolan would not reveal what villain might appear in The Dark Knight Rises, but he said it would not be the Riddler, one of the key bad guys in the comics and past film and TV Batman tales.

Earlier this year, Nolan said he would not resurrect the Joker, the cackling villain played by Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. Ledger won the supporting-actor Academy Award for the role, a year after he died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs. -- AP

[Bump]

Originally Posted by Vanilla Thunder

What happened in the comics after he broke his back? Did he come back?

yes

[Bump]

I'm pretty sure that you should expect Batman's back to break in Rises.

[Red Brooklyn]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

Oh my.

Is there an Oscar for best one-sheet?

[BigCatDaddy]

Originally Posted by Vanilla Thunder

What happened in the comics after he broke his back? Did he come back?

You can read all about it here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman:...all#Knightfall

[WhiteWhale]

Originally Posted by BigCatDaddy

You can read all about it here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman:...all#Knightfall

The whole thing was done because it was the 90's. In the 90's everyone wanted ultra violent anti-heroes. The plan was to replace batman with an edgier more 90's anti-hero.

Of course, everyone hated him and they had to bring back the real batman.

[JD10367]

I might have a few of those original comics. Maybe they'll be worth something now.

I just unpacked my "TDKR" prologue. Just under 7 minutes long, all IMAX footage (full frame). I'll be test running it in two hours.

[Deberg_1990]

Originally Posted by JD10367

I might have a few of those original comics. Maybe they'll be worth something now.

I just unpacked my "TDKR" prologue. Just under 7 minutes long, all IMAX footage (full frame). I'll be test running it in two hours.

Nice. ill expect a full spoiler free report by morning. : )

[JD10367]

Originally Posted by Deberg_1990

Nice. ill expect a full spoiler free report by morning. : )

I had to watch it from the booth, so it didn't seem all that. I guess it reminded me of my first sexual experience: I really don't know what the **** was going on, and soon it was over, but I think it was good.

FWIW, I couldn't understand a damn word Bane said, but I think that's intentional. But the other projectionist was down in the theater watching it, and he said he could understand it better from in there.

Whole thing was full-frame IMAX, as were the clips in the montage at the end.

The main scene was of "something" happening on a plane (again, not really sure, something hostage-y and mercenary-ish with some apparent betrayal or double-crossing). Nice stunt piece and, as usual, the thing that strikes me about Nolan's work here (as it did in "TDK") is that all the stunt pieces are either physically done, or the CGI is so good that it doesn't look CGI.

I guess if you're familiar with the Bane mythology and the backstory maybe it makes sense, but as someone only passingly familiar I was confused for most of it. But it seemed to have the same flavor as "TDK" and "Inception" so I think, while it may not be the giant hit "TDK" was (because a lot of that was due to the Joker character and Heath Ledger's portrayal thereof), it will be a very solid flick.

[-King-]

We've seen the first six minutes of 'The Dark Knight Rises'!

On Thursday evening, a select group of journalists and Warner Bros. Pictures executives were ushered into the Universal City IMAX theater in Los Angeles for a special showing of the first six minutes of director Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight Rises." Just like "The Dark Knight," for which the prologue was attached to IMAX prints of "I Am Legend" four years ago, this will be attached to around 42 IMAX 70mm prints of "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol" when it opens on Dec. 16.

Nolan himself was on hand to provide a brief introduction, in which he joked that he had just started editing the film so "don't ask me how it ends" (like he would tell). But he spent most of his brief time extolling the virtues of shooting in IMAX, which will be used for approximately 50 minutes of "The Dark Knight Rises." He said it provided an "immersive" experience that recaptured the "grandeur" of going to the movies, something he feels is being "chipped away."

That's a discussion for another day, but there's no question that Nolan is using IMAX to its fullest potential. After a short non-IMAX opening in which we saw Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) eulogizing the late Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) -- a direct link to the end of "The Dark Knight" -- the full IMAX screen opened up and we got into the meat of the segment. Full disclosure: The studio has asked everyone in attendance to not give away the minute-by-minute details of the sequence, but we can certainly provide some impressions.

Our first impression: huge. The scene involves planes, hostages and a daring kidnapping (all linked, by the way, to the viral marketing campaign that began this week), and it's done on a scale that you won't believe -- and that looks even more incredible and dizzying in the IMAX format. Basically, the CIA is acquiring a missing nuclear physicist named Dr. Pavel (Alon Abutbul) from the members of a militia. But as they board their plane to take the doctor away, Bane (Tom Hardy) quickly reveals that he has other plans.

Bane: From the first shot of Tom Hardy (similar to the shot that revealed Heath Ledger's hideous Joker grin four years ago), shaved bald and with a spider-like breathing mask clamped on his face, you can tell that Nolan has found a villain worthy enough to follow the Clown Prince of Crime. Before you even see Bane, an aura of mystery and menace is established around the man -- an aura that rapidly turns to dread and terror once Bane reveals himself.

We got a chance to speak with Nolan after the screening, and he laid out his rationale for selecting Bane as Batman's chief adversary: "I tasked David Goyer (co-writer on the story) early on, when we knew the shape of our story, with looking for a worthy antagonist. We examined really all the possibilities, and what we were looking for was an archetype. What we were looking for was a character that embodied a threat that we hadn't dealt with before, that Batman hadn't dealt with before in our films.

"Bane is primarily a physical presence," Nolan continued. "He's threatening in a monstrous way and very frightening in a physical way, and that's why we went for him. We didn't want to do any kind of watered down version of the Joker, which a lot of those characters are, and we really found something in him. He's got incredible intelligence as well and a really fascinating backstory that we were able to draw elements from into our story. I'm very excited for the world to see what Tom Hardy has done with this, because he's created this unbelievably unique character."

But back to the footage: Once Bane is introduced, the situation rapidly escalates. His voice, by the way, is eerie and mechanized, but nearly everyone at the screening noted that it was difficult to make out all his lines through the mask (Nolan addressed the issue with The Hollywood Reporter), an issue we hope can be rectified. Nevertheless, this man is bad, bad, bad -- and the loyalty of his followers is even more frightening. The stunts and action beats in the sequence are stunning: Think James Bond filtered through the lens of "Inception."

The sequence ends with another visual tip to "The Dark Knight" and then we get a quick montage of other scenes from the movie, including our first looks at Selina Kyle/Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) and Gotham City police officer John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), plus some seriously epic confrontations on the streets of Gotham. The final shot is a chilling one -- and it promises that "The Dark Knight Rises" may actually descend into some dark places.

A whole new trailer, comprising almost entirely different footage, will show up in front of "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" next week as well, so prepare for an onslaught of Bat-mania as the countdown to July 20, 2012, begins. And check back here in a few days for more on "The Dark Knight Rises" and our exclusive interview with Christopher Nolan!

[Deberg_1990]

Originally Posted by JD10367

I had to watch it from the booth, so it didn't seem all that. I guess it reminded me of my first sexual experience: I really don't know what the **** was going on, and soon it was over, but I think it was good.

FWIW, I couldn't understand a damn word Bane said, but I think that's intentional. But the other projectionist was down in the theater watching it, and he said he could understand it better from in there.

Whole thing was full-frame IMAX, as were the clips in the montage at the end.

The main scene was of "something" happening on a plane (again, not really sure, something hostage-y and mercenary-ish with some apparent betrayal or double-crossing). Nice stunt piece and, as usual, the thing that strikes me about Nolan's work here (as it did in "TDK") is that all the stunt pieces are either physically done, or the CGI is so good that it doesn't look CGI.

I guess if you're familiar with the Bane mythology and the backstory maybe it makes sense, but as someone only passingly familiar I was confused for most of it. But it seemed to have the same flavor as "TDK" and "Inception" so I think, while it may not be the giant hit "TDK" was (because a lot of that was due to the Joker character and Heath Ledger's portrayal thereof), it will be a very solid flick.

Sounds great. Love that Nolan seems to favor practical stunts and effects or at least makes it seem that way.

I've read other write ups that mentioned Bane was hard to understand as well. If Nolan decides to keep it that way it may present a problem for alot of audiences.

[Tribal Warfare]

Chris Nolan & Emma Thomas Talk Dark Knight Rises

IGN: Did you always want to introduce Bane sort of physically in the middle of an action sequence? I would imagine the first thought would be, "We'll introduce him in prison because that's what people associate him with." Can you talk about the genesis of how you wanted to introduce this character?

Christopher Nolan: Well, when you're thinking about opening a film you want to lead in a striking way and with a very striking number of character-driven views. So you're looking for a sequence that showcases this -- in the case of Bane -- his physicality and his aggression and devotion to his prize and this kind of thing. Those are all things that get wrapped up in there.

IGN: We know you selected Bane as the villain of this film because you wanted him to be a physical challenge for Batman. But he's a character that, frankly, I didn't really read up on until I heard that he was going to be in the movie. I knew that he was the guy who broke Batman's back, and that's kind of all I knew about him. But the more I read about him, the more I became kind of fascinated by him, that this is a guy who was raised in prison and all that. How much of that backstory, the elements that made him who he was, do you retain in the film? And if you don't, were you worried at all that that would be like getting rid of Bruce Wayne seeing his parents shot, that impetus for why he is who he is?

Nolan: Well, the liberating thing about dealing with a lesser known villain is you feel more creative freedom to embrace the elements of that character you feel can serve your story and ignore those that won't. But at the same time, we chose Bane because he has some very unique elements to who he is. As far as the emphasis to it in the film, I'm actually editing some right now, so you never quite know until it's done. But we certainly intend to do justice to it, to the character I've written and to the comics. And I think the significance of Bane, in our eyes, is his strength as an antagonist to Batman. Everything must serve that, including the nature of his past and how that will play into the story.

IGN: Gary Oldman said the other day something about the Harvey Dent Act. Is there a "Harvey Dent Act," an actual piece of legislation, and what can you tell us about sort of the shape that Gotham is in when we pick up the story eight years later?

Nolan: Well, that's funny, I didn't read that. But there is a piece of legislation, and we are dealing with a Gotham that's moved on. In the last eight years, it has come to revere Harvey Dent in the way that Batman intended at the end of the last film.

IGN: In Dark Knight, Gordon and Batman make this spur-of-the-moment pact to lie and say about Dent, "He wasn't that guy (Two-Face)." Will we see the repercussion of that pact play out in this film?

Nolan: (smiles) I don't think I want to answer that question.

IGN: That's fair enough.


Nolan: Well, the liberating thing about dealing with a lesser known villain is you feel more creative freedom to embrace the elements of that character you feel can serve your story and ignore those that won't. But at the same time, we chose Bane because he has some very unique elements to who he is. As far as the emphasis to it in the film, I'm actually editing some right now, so you never quite know until it's done. But we certainly intend to do justice to it, to the character I've written and to the comics. And I think the significance of Bane, in our eyes, is his strength as an antagonist to Batman. Everything must serve that, including the nature of his past and how that will play into the story.

IGN: Can you talk about the idea to start with Bane already being Bane. We don't know how he got there, but --

Emma Thomas: And I think in some ways it's kind of fun. In The Dark Knight we did the same thing when we introduced the Joker, and he was in mid-heist. And it very much, if you remember, it very much gave you the sense of who the Joker was. And I think the same thing goes for this prologue. Bane is already doing his thing, and you can see that he's a brute. He's a smart brute, but some things -- there's a real grandeur.

IGN: I know you guys have worked with Tom on Inception so were you already thinking about Dark Knight Rises and Bane when you were doing Inception? Were you looking at Tom like, "Oh yeah. That's our guy." At what point in the process did you say, "Tom should be Bane"?

Thomas: We already knew that Bane was the villain when we were shooting Inception. And actually as we were shooting, we did talk about how, wow, Tom would be perfect for Bane. We talked about that pretty early on. The issue that we had was that Tom was going to be doing another movie. He was committed to be in Fury Road, and we knew he wasn't available. So every conversation that we had about how Tom was perfect to be Bane was sort of tinged with regret because we knew he couldn't be. So as soon as we found out that that movie had pushed we approached him.

IGN: We saw a little bit of the sizzle reel there at the end of the prologue. Are those highlights from the upcoming trailer, or is that just stuff that only people are going to see if they come to this IMAX prologue?

Thomas: I'm trying to think. We have a great trailer coming out, and there are a couple of things in the prologue that are in the trailer. But there's a lot of the trailer that isn't in the prologue.

IGN: At what point did you realize that you also wanted Catwoman to be in it? And were there any villains that you guys considered and cast aside? There was always speculation about Riddler.

Thomas: That's really a question for Chris in terms of who they thought of and tossed aside. In terms of the way the process works, even before went to start Inception, Chris and David Goyer had sat down and mapped out what the plot for what the story of this movie was going to be. And while we were shooting Inception, Jonah [Nolan], Chris's brother, was writing the script. So while we were shooting Inception, we knew exactly who the characters were. As for how they came up with who those characters were, that's a question for them.

[Red Brooklyn]

Not sure what I expected from this thing, but this is not it. At all. And that excites the hell out of me. I was genuinely surprised by the prologue.

Very excited for this thing.

[bowener]

Originally Posted by Tribal Warfare

Spoiler!

Operation Early Bird??? Hmmmm I wonder who they can be referring too?
Got Dick Grayson????

Nope.

Spoiler!

I read that the 7 minute imax clip is of Bane being transported via helicopter or something... sounds more like that.

[JD10367]

They also released a brand new regular-length trailer on the front of "Sherlock Holmes 2". Very good trailer, lots more scenes from the film.

[DaveNull]

Crappy cam version of the prologue with a transcript