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[The Caped Knight]

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES SOUNDTRACK DUE JULY 17



Composer Hans Zimmer Teams With Christopher Nolan For The Conclusion Of The Dark Knight Trilogy

Album Available For Pre-Order On Amazon And iTunes

(July 10, 2012 – Los Angeles, CA) – On July 17, 2012, WaterTower Music will release The Dark Knight Rises : Original Motion Picture Soundtrack at all physical and digital retailers. Academy- Award® winning composer Hans Zimmer teams for the fourth time with writer/director Christopher Nolan to create the music for the final installment of his Dark Knight Trilogy. The CD version of the soundtrack will contain an exclusive link to unlock three bonus tracks, while a deluxe version of the soundtrack, with three additional tracks, will be available digitally. A limited edition vinyl configuration is set for release on September 4. Following the success of his experiential app for Inception, which boasted 5 million downloads, Zimmer is preparing to unveil a new iPhone app for The Dark Knight Rises that will provide fans with a more immersive musical and sonic experience into the world of Gotham City. Details for the new Hans Zimmer app will be announced soon.

“I thought after we finished the last one [The Dark Knight], that was it,” said Zimmer. “There was nothing else we could possibly do. At the same time, when I started reading this script, I instantly knew that there was a whole world out there that I hadn’t even touched yet.”

“I have never worked with someone so dedicated to the idea that the real risk is in playing it safe,” said Nolan. “Hans taught me that you sometimes have to go in what appears to be the wrong direction to discover all the possibilities, and that without exploring those possibilities you can never do anything truly exceptional. He sets creative goals for every film that are higher than you ever thought practical…or even reachable.”

Zimmer added, “We’re comrades in arms, the way we try to cheer each other on and try to really do the best work we possibly can. And part of that is you have to be prepared to not hold back. You have to put everything into the movie.”

Hans Zimmer has scored over 100 films, grossing more than 19.6 billion dollars at the box office worldwide. He has been honored with the Academy Award®, 2 Golden Globes, 3 Grammys, an American Music Award, and a Tony Award. In 2003, ASCAP gave him the prestigious Henry Mancini award for Lifetime Achievement for his impressive and influential body of work. He also received his Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in December 2010. Some of his most recent works include Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted, Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, and Rob Marshall’s Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.

Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ The Dark Knight Rises is the epic conclusion to filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy.

The film stars Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Morgan Freeman. Christopher Nolan directed the film from a screenplay by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan, story by Christopher Nolan & David S. Goyer. Emma Thomas, Christopher Nolan and Charles Roven produced the film, with Benjamin Melniker, Michael E. Uslan, Kevin De La Noy and Thomas Tull serving as executive producers, and Jordan Goldberg co-producing. “The Dark Knight Rises” is based upon Batman characters created by Bob Kane and published by DC Comics.

Warner Bros. Pictures presents, in association with Legendary Pictures, a Syncopy Production, a Film by Christopher Nolan. Opening in theatres and IMAX on July 20, 2012, the film will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company. The Dark Knight Rises has been rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some sensuality and language.

The Dark Knight Rises -- Original Motion Picture Soundtrack and The Dark Knight Rises – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Deluxe Version on WaterTower Music will be available digitally and in stores on July 17, 2012.

http://www.watertowermusic.com/newss...?search=560803

[silentrascal]

Could 'The Dark Knight Rises' land a oscar nomination?

http://www.mercurynews.com/entertain...ture-nominaton

[kvz5]

http://t.co/EzWedCXY

This Week's Cover: Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan discuss the making and meaning of 'The Dark Knight Rises'

Christopher Nolan is throwing down the gauntlet. “We want this to be the most exciting film, the most emotionally engaging and enjoyable blockbuster that an audience can see this summer,” says the director of The Dark Knight Rises, the third and final chapter in the Inception helmer’s trilogy of Batman movies starring Christian Bale. In advance of the film’s release on July 20, Nolan and Bale sat down with Entertainment Weekly for separate interviews to talk about the making of Rises and the remarkable success of their collaboration. The new issue of EW, on sale later this week, also features exclusive new photos from the fil.

During a chat in his home office in Los Angeles, Nolan spoke of constructing the story for Rises with writers David S. Goyer and Jonathan Nolan and discussed how the edgy epic reflects “the things that worry us” about the world. But he dismissed the perception that the movie promotes a specific political agenda. “I don’t feel there’s a Left or Right perspective in the film,” he says. “What is there is just an honest assessment or honest exploration of the world we live in.” Nolan told EW that he’s satisfied with the threequel, which pits Gotham City’s caped crusader against two new villains: Selina Kyle, a.k.a. Catwoman (Anne Hathaway), a thief who preys on high society, and Bane (Tom Hardy), a fierce, secretive, and brilliant revolutionary. Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Gary Oldman are back, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard join the cast. “I’m very happy with it. I know it’s the film I wanted to make. It does all the things I really hoped for,” says Nolan, who found inspiration in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, David Lean’s Dr. Zhivago and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner – plus Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities – for his climactic opus. “I look what everyone has done in the film and I think they’ve done a very good job — and I think I’ve done a good job not obscuring it.”

Over a breakfast of carrot juice at an L.A. restaurant late last month, Bale told EW he’s both excited and overwhelmed by the imminent arrival of Rises’ pop culture moment. “It’s just begun, hasn’t it?” said the actor, noting the massive billboards outside the eatery. “These movies always start as small affairs, just me and Chris, sitting across a table, talking,” says Bale. “By this point, it starts to become this monster, just kind of roaring. For me, it’s kind of exciting, but don’t get too close, because it might devour you with its jaws.”

Not that Bale is anything less than grateful for the beast that’s been the Dark Knight. Before becoming Batman, Bale was frustrated by the lack of quality parts coming his way. Not anymore. Since Batman Begins, Bale has not only been a very busy actor, but one of Hollywood’s best. “[Batman] afforded me a change in my life. And it’s up to me to make a hash of that,” says Bale, who won an Oscar last year for his work in The Fighter. “Most actors desperately hope for work to come their way. Batman has given me the ability to say, ‘I don’t have to.’ I can choose, and choose wisely, and make the most of it.”

[Vengeance of Bane]

And the Oscar goes to ... Batman? Could happen

By David Germain — The Associated Press

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — It’s a good thing Batman dresses in black. He could be a popular guy on Hollywood’s black-tie circuit come Academy Awards season.

“The Dark Knight Rises” probably has the best chance ever for a superhero film to rise into the best-picture mix at February’s Oscars. The film is the last in a celebrated trilogy that elevated comic-book movies to operatic proportion, and Hollywood likes sending finales out with a lovely door-prize (Peter Jackson’s first two “Lord of the Rings” films were Oscar also-rans before the trilogy’s conclusion won best picture).

It has the weight and scope — and then some — of 2008’s “The Dark Knight,” the “Batman Begins” sequel whose snub in the best-picture field helped prod the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to expand the category to more than five nominees.

And in the snub department, academy voters are not likely to forget that Batman boss Christopher Nolan, one of modern Hollywood’s true innovators, has yet to be nominated for best director. So there could be an “oops, sorry about that” sheepishness among Oscar types working in both Nolan’s and the film’s favor.

Nolan doesn’t feel snubbed that “The Dark Knight” was overlooked for best picture or that he missed out on a directing nomination for that one and his 2010 thriller “Inception,” a best-picture nominee. He actually sees a one-of-a-kind honor in the way his films have played out over Oscar season.

“Look, the idea, the fact that people have talked about ‘The Dark Knight’ as being a key reason why the academy changed their rules and expanded the field is just a huge honor for the film, in a weird way,” Nolan said.

The rules now allow for as many as 10 best-picture contenders. Opening next week, “The Dark Knight Rises” may just speak for itself as a work of high costume drama — albeit superhero costumes — that’s worthy of show business’ highest honors, no matter how many nominees there are.

The film is gorgeous, sharply written, briskly paced despite an epic running time approaching three hours. The characters have depth and pathos, and the drama feels far richer than the usual hero-saving-the-world saga. The action reflects our own hard times as a masked terrorist lays siege to the masses in a sort of perverse Occupy Gotham City movement that pits the comic-book world’s 99 percenters against the rich and rapacious.

“I’m not saying this as a cast member. I’m saying this as a member of the academy. So far, it’s the best film I’ve seen all year,” said Anne Hathaway, who plays master thief Catwoman in “The Dark Knight Rises.” “He’s transcended the genre now. I think he’s shown that a comic-book movie can actually be epic, extraordinary cinema.”

So that’s one Oscar vote already from past best-actress nominee Hathaway. Round up the rest of Nolan’s key cast and the film’s got even more academy backers: four Oscar winners — Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Marion Cotillard and Batman himself, Christian Bale — and another longtime awards season oversight, Gary Oldman, who finally got his first nomination last season.

That’s half a dozen big names pulling for “The Dark Knight Rises.” Sure, it’s a tiny fraction of the academy’s almost 6,000 members. Yet when that many great actors sign up for a superhero flick, it must be something special.
They and co-stars Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, two of Nolan’s “Inception” colleagues, deliver superb performances in a genre whose characters often act more than a little campy.

That has been the difference in Nolan’s Batman films. Characters wear silly disguises, but it all feels real — so real that Heath Ledger posthumously won the supporting-actor Oscar as the Joker in “The Dark Knight,” playing a madman hidden behind makeup that looked like a melted ice cream cake.

Nolan “takes it seriously and he treats the characters like human beings, not as caricatures, and he treats the world as a real place,” Gordon-Levitt said. “He walks that line of delivering you a spectacle but not talking down to you.”

It’s not as if the academy has disrespected Nolan’s films. He’s been nominated himself three times, for the screenplays of “Inception” and his 2001 breakout hit “Memento,” as well as best-picture as a producer on “Inception.”
Nolan’s films have received 21 nominations — including eight each for “Inception” and “The Dark Knight” — and won six Oscars.

“Regardless of whether ‘The Dark Knight’ was nominated or not, we had nothing to complain about,” Bale said. “I don’t think Chris would be complaining whatsoever. I think he’s doing very well.”

The Directors Guild of America, whose awards contenders usually are a close match for the Oscar directing field, has nominated Nolan three times, for “Memento,” “The Dark Knight” and “Inception.”

Hathaway thinks it’s a huge oversight that Oscar voters have yet to follow suit but that “it’s probably just a matter of time” before Nolan wins his Oscar. “I hope it happens with this one,” she said.

Nolan’s not fretting over his Oscar prospects, though. He knows it’s a different kind of film — smaller, more intimate drama — that usually dominates at the awards. He’s actually quite pleased at how his movies have fared during Oscar season.

“The academy’s been incredibly good to me and my films, and it would be churlish of me to complain,” Nolan said. “Really, we’ve been honored by the academy in more kinds of different ways, and very importantly to me, Heath Ledger winning the best supporting-actor Oscar. These are things that mean a lot to me.”

Still, wouldn’t it mean more to win that directing Oscar himself?

“That would be terrific, but at the end of the day, they owe Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock a lot more than me, you know what I mean?” Nolan said, citing two Hollywood greats who never won the directing prize. “It’s kind of like, get in line.”

[kvz5]

http://www.news.com.au/news/end-of-t...-1226423400838

End of the Knight for Bale

IT'S been almost a decade since Christian Bale, 38, first donned the mask and cape as Batman. Now he is doing it for the last time in The Dark Knight Rises.
"It's a bittersweet experience. There's an awful lot I've taken away from these three films. I've made some great friendships, particularly with (director) Chris Nolan," Bale says. "There are others whom I miss daily. Heath (Ledger), for instance. He's been an integral part."

The Welsh-born actor recalls the moment he first stepped into the career-defining role.

"Almost nine years ago when the franchise began, I was awestruck by playing such an iconic character," he says.

"Thinking about it now, when I shot the last scene of the last movie, I reflected on everything it meant to me throughout the years. It was incredibly meaningful."

Produced for a reported budget of $366 million, it's a safe bet Warner Bros will make a hefty profit considering the franchise's track record: Batman Begins, in 2005, grossed $US372 million, and The Dark Knight, in 2008, raked in almost $1 billion.

As the figurehead for such a financially viable enterprise, Bale's stock rose considerably.

"Until Batman, the financiers on many projects would tell directors or producers who wanted to cast me, 'Don't even mention Christian Bale to me'," he says.

"I'd often hear from directors who wanted me in a film, 'Look, I'm sorry, but the money people just won't let me cast you'.

"Who knows? Talk to me in a few years' time. I might be back in that same position.

"But in the interim I've gotten to make some wonderful films I'm very proud of."

Bale won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Fighter, in 2010. He also starred in Terminator Salvation the year earlier, when his reputation for being "difficult" became public knowledge owing to a profanity-laced tirade towards one of the crew.

In 2008, on the eve of The Dark Knight premiere in London, he was arrested for assault against his mother and sister, although charges were later dropped. The argument was reportedly caused by his family's financial situation.

"I'm sure everyone has moments when we feel like we should be ecstatically happy and we can't figure out the reason why we're not. Like, something is missing," he says.

"Life throws you curve balls, as it does to everyone. I'm no different."

It seems for now, Bale couldn't be more content. Living in Los Angeles since 1992, he maintains a regular lifestyle with his wife of 12 years, Sandra "Sibi" Blazic, 42, and their daughter, Emmeline, 7.

"I get no more joy than being with my daughter and my family," he says.

Now more candid about his private life, Bale talks about taking his family on location. "I believe in sticking together. I travel to wonderful places and I want my daughter to be a part of that. So, no, I'm not a Skype-Dad. And anyway, I'm bloody awful with technology. I would always balls-up Skype," he says with a laugh.

The Dark Knight Rises was shot in New York, Los Angeles, Glasgow, and Jodhpur.

The story picks up eight years after The Dark Knight. It binds the three films together as a cohesive unit, and offers an emotional roller-coaster for fans of the mythology.

While the movie is first and foremost entertainment, it includes some political and of-the-moment social undertones. In a stroke of serendipity, the storyline contained subject matter in common with what was happening in the world.

"We were shooting in November and Occupy Wall Street was happening two blocks away. It was uncanny that one of the themes of the movie had actually come to happen in society," says Bale.

"But it's in the eye of the beholder as to whether or not it needs to resonate more than just as entertainment."

Michael Caine returns as loyal butler Alfred, as do Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon and Morgan Freeman who reprises the role of Lucius Fox.

The newcomers include Anne Hathaway as a kick-ass, take-no-prisoners Catwoman, Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose, Contagion) as a Wayne Enterprises board member, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (500 Days of Summer, Inception) as a good cop.

In the pivotal role as the menacing villain and Batman's nemesis Bane, British actor Tom Hardy (Warrior, Inception) was cast.

While Bane isn't as widely known as the Joker, he is a formidable threat.

"Tom really goes the distance, way beyond what most other actors would do. He's created a phenomenon and a villain that stands by itself," Bale says.

He sees the role of Hathaway's Catwoman/Selina Kyle as inspirational.

"I think Selina Kyle is a very positive influence on young girls. I believe it's important to have great female role models," he says. "It's funny. I never used to listen to female singers, though now I do an awful lot because I want (Emmeline) to know that she can do anything that a man can do."

Bale is the youngest of four children. His mother was a clown and a dancer in a circus, and his father, a trained pilot, worked sporadically. The family split up when he was a teenager and he lived an unsettling existence, moving over 15 times as a child. His childhood years as an actor, starting at 13 in Empire of the Sun, were fraught with unhappiness. He grew up quickly when he became the breadwinner of his family.

His daughter leads a very different existence.

"My dream for her is to have the freedom to choose whatever she wants to do," he says. And he's against her joining him in the business.

"In an amateur fashion, I'll support any passion she has, but I wouldn't want her to be acting professionally. If she chose this career, she'd have to have a hell of a life before her."

It might be all serious business at work, but he knows how to lighten up at home.

"My daughter has me dancing and singing to songs I would have never imagined. Nowadays, LMFAO is one of my favourites. It's rejuvenating," he says, laughing.

What does Emmeline think of having an action figure in her parent's image? "She understands it's not really me. She knows I'm pretending." He leans forward. "But I can't deny it's not a kick for her and her friends. They enjoy it when I do the voice and chase them around pretending to be Batman," he says, smiling broadly.

"And I enjoy it, too."

[NoMoreDeadCops!]

Day 12 of Empire's TDKR countdown: http://www.empireonline.com/features...stopher-nolan/

The article is a "Z to A Guide" to Christopher Nolan's career so far.

[Dragon_316ca]

[Dragon_316ca]

Nolan interview by Flicks and Bits: http://www.flicksandbits.com/2012/07...t-rises/28367/

[kvz5]

‘Dark Knight Rises’: Tom Hardy, a Brando for Blu-ray era?

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2012/07/12/dark-knight-rises-tom-hardy-a-brando-for-blu-ray-era/#/25

[Kane52630]

'Dark Knight Rises' director: Hathaway 'nails' Catwoman portrayal

http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07...man-portrayal/

The character of Catwoman has been brought to life by a number of actresses, but for this month's "The Dark Knight Rises," director Christopher Nolan found the perfect person to fill Selina Kyle's catsuit in Anne Hathaway.

Nolan told CNN that the character "is the most alive presence in the movie in the beginning," and she also helps draw Bruce Wayne (Batman) out of his shell. "She's a breath of fresh air...and Anne Hathaway just nails the character, delightfully."

She did have to put in hard work to portray Catwoman, Hathaway tells us, and had to dedicate herself to getting stronger.

"You can't have little spaghetti arms when you're doing that," Hathaway, 29, joked. "A huge part of the character was her strength and you can't fake that, you have to actually become strong. And it was great to have the time to develop that strength and to also have the support that I needed. I've never played a character that was so dependent on that before."

Hathaway said she spent about 10 months preparing for the part and shooting the film, and she added that she surprised herself with her focus.

"I'd never done anything like that, nor believed that I could," Hathaway said. "I've never really been that person. And it was pretty life-changing realizing that I could commit to something that was healthy for that long. I did a lot of growing over the course of this film."

Fans of the superhero series will get to soon decide for themselves if Hathaway was the right choice when the movie bows July 20.

[NoMoreDeadCops!]

Day 13 of Empire's TDKR countdown: http://www.empireonline.com/features...-knight-effect

The article is called "The Dark Knight Effect." Here's the description:

It wasn’t just the general public who were blown away by Christopher Nolan’s Bat-films. Hollywood’s finest also felt the effects of the series, and in some cases it changed their approach to making movies or encouraged them to try new things. To find out exactly what those ripple effects were, Empire spoke to some of the biggest blockbuster filmmakers around to see how The Dark Knight struck them...

It features quotes from Wes Anderson, Tim Burton, Zack Snyder and others.

[Dragon_316ca]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/mo...e-of-imax.html

Snippets:

Mr. Nolan’s latest Batman movie, “The Dark Knight Rises” — he says the film, due Friday, will be his last in the series — features 72 minutes of Imax footage, currently the most any studio film has used. The rest of the movie is presented in 35 millimeter, a squatter, more rectangular look that may be likened to letterbox. The film freely changes format from scene to scene, but viewers who look closely may notice one transition in particular: a gate slams down, and the screen goes from standard to Imax within the shot.

......

The image was shot in Imax, but the smaller still represents what audiences will see in a 35-millimeter print at a standard multiplex. Batman’s right hand is cropped out at the bottom of the frame, as is much of the smoke and fog above the buildings at the top. The sprocket holes (for the projector) are on the sides, running four per frame, with the soundtrack vertically to the right of them.

By comparison the Imax version of the frame is about 10 times larger with 10 times the resolution. Greater detail makes it in the shot, like the smoke and fog, and also more vivid-looking extras. To allow for as much screen space as possible, Imax runs its film through the cameras and projectors sideways, with the sprocket holes — 15 per frame — at the top and bottom instead of the sides. And the audio track doesn’t appear on the film print, but on a separate program that is synced to the projector. All this makes for more surface area on the frame to create a denser, sharper image.

To grasp the image clarity, consider a home HD television screen with 1,920 pixels of horizontal resolution. An Imax frame, meanwhile, has a resolution upward of 18,000 pixels, said David Keighley, chief quality officer for Imax, who spoke by phone from Los Angeles.

“It helps make the audience really feel like they’re in the picture,” he said. “It’s also very bright on the screen because there’s a tremendous amount of light that can be projected on that large frame. The Imax screens are almost twice the brightness of regular screens.”

[lukey37]

THE BEGINNINGS

Wally Pfister, cinematographer

Chris [Nolan] and I evolved our process of how to approach action pictures together, and it was very helpful that what we did in between were very different kinds of projects. There's a bit of release between these movies that allowed us both to grow in different directions and explore different approaches. After Batman Begins, we did The Prestige, a 19th-century period piece about magic; it had very little action but an awful lot of fascinating character studies, so we applied some of the things we learned to The Dark Knight. Then we shot Inception in lots of different countries, and Chris really applied that to The Dark Knight Rises, which opened up a fresh approach to scale. I believe there's only one foreign location in The Dark Knight. Here, we have multiple cities and international locations.

Chris Corbould, special effects supervisor

I got the usual call: "We're ready to go, come out and read the script." Chris is very protective of his scripts, secrecy-wise. So I had to go out there and read it. It was just what I was expecting from him: the scale is massive. The scope, the characters, the story, all the toys … everything's there.

Wally Pfister

When we started Batman Begins I wondered how to deal with the conventions of a comic-book film. Chris backed me off of those notions. He said, "I really want our approach to be the same as it's been on Memento and Insomnia; I want to take a very naturalistic approach to what you do. Just do what you do, I don't want it to be hugely stylised or a different approach in the photography." He wanted Gotham City to be real and gritty.

Chris Corbould

I consciously try to avoid watching other films [for work]. I'd never seen a whole Batman film before I did Batman Begins, and I didn't watch any, because I didn't want to be subconsciously swayed by anything. I've worked on a lot of Bond films, which are close to Chris's heart, and sometimes we talk about that. But I have to be careful not to harp back to that; I want it to be as fresh as possible.

Wally Pfister

Chris and I always watch other films to get inspiration. They don't have a direct influence necessarily, you just pull things out. This time, I chose Sidney Lumet's 1981 film Prince Of The City, because of how dark it was. One of the films Chris had chosen was The Battle Of Algiers; we watched the battle sequences and talked about the overall scale of it. In The Dark Knight, the story with the Joker was confined to his antics with the underworld bosses in Gotham. But with Bane, Chris has taken the antics to a larger scale. It's not just a city under siege, but a pretty major-scale takeover. You see the full-on national ramifications of a crazy ****er like Bane.

THE BIRTH OF BANE


Buster Reeves, fight co-ordinator and Tom Hardy's stunt double

I was Christian Bale's stunt double on the first two Batman films, and I helped put all the fights together. This time they wanted me purely as an outside eye to make sure the fights were exactly as Chris Nolan wanted them to look. It's not the same fighting style as the last two, he wanted to go in a whole different direction. Because Bane's his biggest adversary yet, Chris wanted Batman to evolve his fighting style. We've added a bit of Jeet Kun Do, some Silat [an Indonesian martial art], a bit of Thai boxing. Bane's a big brute, and it takes about 15 shots to deliver what he can do in one blow, so Batman had to be less aggressive, more clever. I had to think about how he could be a bit like Muhammad Ali, hit and not get hit. Mike Tyson versus Floyd Mayweather was what I had in mind.

Lindy Hemming, costume designer

I was working with Chris when [he and his brother, Jonathan Nolan] were still writing the script, so we were discussing where Bane came from, why he ended up wearing that mask. We were asking questions like: What is that mask? How did it come to be made? Where did Bane's clothes come from, and why is he wearing them? It was really intensive. I drew hundreds of masks, faces, shapes. We always knew that he was being fed the "Venom" steroid – in our case the anaesthetic – because of his past injuries, and I wanted him to look like a snarling baboon. The reference pictures we were taking and finding were very much angry wild animals. And of course then adding into that the situation that we thought that his gear had been made by somebody military, or somebody using military parts. A mercenary camp somewhere, where there are clever people making bombs and equipment, and he's got them to make his equipment.

Wally Pfister

One of our challenges was to make Bane look bigger, like he's towering over the other characters. Tom Hardy is not physically larger than Christian Bale or the other thugs that are around him, so really, in terms of photography, the approach was to keep Bane looking mysterious and massive.

Lindy Hemming

Bane's got two coats. The first is a kind of mercenary jacket. We didn't want to use leather, and we pretty much ruined it before he got to wear it. That's meant to be part of his past, jumping in and out of jeeps and travelling around, eventually ending up in Gotham. And then the second coat he wears, the sheepskin coat, is a kind of French revolutionary, slightly Romantic coat. Think of a French revolution frock coat and a Swedish Army cold-weather parka; I sort of amalgamated the two. That's what Bane wears when he sees himself as taking over Gotham. He has a romantic, aggressive image of himself.

Harry Lu, armourer

I worked with practically every character except Batman. Batman does not need guns – and there are some big guns in this film. We have a Barrett .50 caliber at one point, which is about a big a weapon as a man can carry. It's heavy! I worked with Tom Hardy a little bit, but his character's physical power is his main weapon.

Buster Reeves

I became Tom's stunt double because the guy who was originally going to be doubling for him blew out his anterior cruciate ligament really close to one of the big fights between Bane and Batman. They said to me, "Look, can you pack on a bit of beef in two weeks and do the fighting?" I wasn't too far off: I just had to eat a bit more protein, do a little less cardio, a bit more lifting and I just blew up. I have that kind of frame. I was very impressed at how quickly Tom had bulked up. He came in as a normal-sized guy and put on 25lbs of muscle in eight weeks. He was so fit, when we were doing some of the fight scenes with him we had to tell him to slow down. He was too fast for some of the guys to react to.

Lindy Hemming

He was so fit, it was incredible.

BATMAN REVISITED

Luisa Abel, makeup department head

For this film we did Batman's eye makeup completely differently to the previous ones, because I wanted to make sure that it was comfortable and would hold and last all day and not smudge. It was tested to make sure it was sweatproof and exactly the right colour to match the costume. Products change all the time; we have ones now that stay longer and are more waterproof. There are always ways to improve!

Lindy Hemming

In the second meeting I had with Chris on Batman Begins we discussed the fact that we would like to change the Batsuit, and we wanted to change it radically. We wanted to make it more modern – more believable as an item that someone would wear for protection and agility – and get away from the rubber suit. We didn't achieve as much as we wanted, but by The Dark Knight we'd worked it out and completely redesigned it. It's the same suit for this film; the only modifications are to do with things that he does in the story. Bruce Wayne is still in his Armani wardrobe, but due to his long absence from the Batsuit, as it were, he's not quite as elegant at the beginning of the story. He later becomes more elegant.

A BIGGER BANG

Chris Corbould

The football stadium sequence was such a thrill. We did something like 80 explosions, which set the scene for the CGI people to take over and manipulate it into a great big crater. We had 12,000 people who turned up, just to watch the filming. We expected them all to get bored and disappear at lunchtime but they were all still there at 7pm.

Harry Lu

We performed several show-and-tells to present Mr Nolan with the firearms we'd selected. If there's one gun for a character, I'll bring out four other choices. Once they're approved, the rubber reproduction for the gun needs to be cast so they can train with the rubber guns first for the stunt sequences and make sure they're safe. Mr Nolan has a very good knowledge of firearms. Sometimes before I can even open my mouth he'll say, "Switch to rubbers, it'll be safer." He knows what he's doing, which makes my job a lot easier.

Chris Corbould

My main concern with the Bat [Batman's flying vehicle] was that on any other film it would probably be almost 100% CGI. It became quickly apparent that Chris wanted to do as much as he could in camera, and that he wanted to give the CGI guys something that was based in reality. I don't think I was quite ready for the amount he wanted to do for real. We built two of these flying machines and they went on every single rig you can imagine. They were mounted on specially built vehicles so we could drive them around roads at 60mph; we hung them under helicopters, on highwires … At one stage we had to get the Bat on top of a skyscraper. It was 28ft long, 17ft wide and 12ft high, and all we had to get it to the top of the building was a service lift. That created a bit of a challenge. And once Chris saw the results he used those systems more and more. I think the highlight was when we suspended it under a heavylift helicopter and flew it around LA; that was quite bizarre. You get the adrenaline rush, this big helicopter thumping over your head, and the wind rushing around … When it takes off, it looks so majestic. You can't beat that adrenaline.

BRINGING DOWN THE CURTAIN

Wally Pfister

I wanted to play around with the colour palette and do some things a bit differently this time, with a little less colour, a little more neutral, trying to really challenge myself and not be stylised. I never want the audience to feel the lighting in any overt way. At one point in the story, when Gotham is going through a really dark period, Chris was making an effort to not do practical lighting. We shut off all the lights, so there's a point when there's no practical lighting at all. I was bored and needed a challenge, so we did a bit of messing around. I was really excited about it.

Chris Corbould

For the end sequence, you've got all the vehicles, all the characters. It's full-on. We shot it on the streets of Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and New York. There's a big battle sequence in the middle of New York. I was dumbfounded that we were allowed to do it, but when Chris sets his mind on doing something he always manages to achieve it.

Buster Reeves

It was really satisfying to complete such an awesome trilogy. That was a personal thing to me, I wanted to see all three through. I met my wife on the second film. I didn't really care what aspect I'd be involved in on the third film; being fight co-ordinator was a bonus! It's great to be part of a trilogy like this that will stand the test of time.

Chris Corbould

It's been great going through it all with Chris, seeing him grow in stature and learn all about shooting action films. I've got such a lot of respect for the guy. What he's written and directed with this is amazing. I can't wait to see it …

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/...ind-the-scenes

[kvz5]

Premiere this Monday:

We will be streaming live from the world premiere of The Dark Knight Rises on Monday July 16th.

Join director Christopher Nolan and stars Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Morgan Freeman for live interviews and red carpet arrivals.

The coverage starts at 3pm PST/6pm EST right here on Facebook: http://on.fb.me/TDKRlive

Have a question for the cast and filmmakers? Comment below for a chance to have them asked on the red carpet. Please specify to whom the question is directed towards.

[NoMoreDeadCops!]

Day 14 of Empire's TDKR countdown: http://www.empireonline.com/intervie...w.asp?IID=1536

It's an interview with Nestor Carbonell:

How did you manage to get reelected after the Joker messed up the town like that?
Well listen, it was not an easy re-election. I campaigned hard, had some good financing, my peeps showed up, and raised some good money and here we are. [laughs]

Is it good to be back for another Batman movie?
Obviously it was thrilling to get reelected. It was great to get back to the set with Chris [Nolan], and Wally [Pfister], the whole gang. And it's an enormous project. I'm used to working on much smaller budget things. It's pretty imposing, but when you have someone with the temperament of Chris Nolan, who comes from the independent world with Memento and has essentially used the same crew for every one of his projects, it's pretty comforting for everyone involved to come in and see the tone of the set. Which is like shooting an independent with, you know, how many hundreds of millions of dollars. So it's a great vibe.


What does Gotham's mayor now think of Batman, given he took the rap for all those deaths?
Obviously there's a lot of secrecy surrounding the script with good reason, but I've been used to working this way now for a number of years, not only with Dark Knight but also with Lost. I think that the Mayor definitely feels that he's not for a vigilante coming in here and, you know, solving crime in this way. It's just not the way he envisions things, and I think there's an ego element obviously to him. This is a man who wants to restore law and order, a man who definitely believes that the... I don't know how much I can reveal... Okay, I will say one thing: this is a man who is very much for putting out legislation where he has the freedom to really go after criminals, to really pursue them in a hard way. I'm not saying that he's going to violate civil liberties, but this is a man who is very tough on crime, and takes it upon himself to take on criminals headfirst. And no, he does not appreciate someone like a Batman, or The Batman as he calls him, coming in here and solving problems.


One of the things we got to learn about the mayor in the last movie is that it seems he's above all the corruption. Is that still true?
Yeah, I think he is above that. I think this is a man... I mean, look. Politics is always give and take, but I think with a man like this, from his point-of-view he's absolutely against corruption. And if he's done anything within his tenure here as mayor, it's to fight the Mob head-on. Now you have these lunatics running around doing their own thing, they're essentially terrorists, and that's a different thing altogether. But in terms of handling organized crime, this is a man who's dead-set against it existing, and he makes it part of his campaign.


Is Mayor Garcia based on any real political figures?
I didn't base [my performance] on any one person, but I wanted him to be his own person. He can't be a complete do-gooder. I think it's pretty hard to find that in any politician. You have to make deals in some groups, and concessions. But I wanted him to definitely have an edge, and obviously I worked with Chris on what his idea of the mayor would be like. I remember in The Dark Knight I came in with him a little bit softer, and [Nolan] wanted me to play him a little bit harder, and now I see why. It's always interesting for me to find something human about the character, and not make him sort of a standard, stock politician. Maybe someone with a slight sense of humor. I definitely had some fun in London, with what I did. [laughs] That's about as cryptic as I can get.

But I think it's always interesting for a dramatic role to find humour in it, and vice versa, in comedy to try and ground it. And this is what I love about The Dark Knight, and just about everything Chris Nolan has done, is that he takes on the psychological thriller genre and he grounds it. This is a cartoon, a comic book, but it feels like this is as real as it can get. And obviously, all of the villains are portrayed so amazingly, with Heath Ledger and now with Tom Hardy. Every role, you look at Gary Oldman, and what he does with his character, and obviously Christian Bale. Everyone is really grounded, and it allows you to suspend disbelief that much more.


How does this movie compare with The Dark Knight?
The stakes have been raised. I mean, as big as Dark Knight was, this is monumental. This is a monster, what Chris Nolan is doing. He's just upped the stakes even more, and who knew they could be upped any more than they were already?


You've worked with two of the most secretive teams in the business: the Nolans and JJ Abrams' Bad Robot. As a filmgoer, do you appreciate that maybe you'll go see it and there'll be stuff that you didn't necessarily know would happen?
I love it! It was interesting for me; I'd never worked this way before, before Lost or Dark Knight, where I'm on a need-to-know basis. I remember, working on Lost, I learned very quickly the way that I had to approach the material, or even ask the director questions, it was always prefaced with, "Would it be wrong for me to assume?" Because I didn't know where my character on Lost was going. It got to the point on Dark Knight, though, where I did request to read the script because I just didn't know what I was saying at some points. So I was given a room to read it in, and a couple of hours. It certainly informs your choices, but I completely appreciate the secrecy, and a lot of these projects that Bad Robot and obviously Chris Nolan does a lot of it is about thrill elements, and mystery elements, and you don't want to let that out.

[NoMoreDeadCops!]

Day 15 of Empire's TDKR countdown: http://www.empireonline.com/intervie...w.asp?IID=1535

It's an interview with Tom Hardy:

You have a lot of very physical scenes in this movie. How is it doing those with that costume and mask on?
It's uncomfortable because your body's really restricted. It takes a while to get the sweat on and get loose and fit. It's heavy and it's tight and the costumers need it to look good and solid. So it looks great when it's tight but it's not practical to move it, and you need a couple of hours of moving about before the suit will then move with you. Then the costumer will come in and tuck bits and tweak bits so it looks great, but then it's all functional and you start sweating. Then you get drenched with sweat on the inside and it creates another layer between me and the costume, so that's when it gets comfortable, funnily enough. A bit like when you have a scab and you pick off the scab. It's like ripping off a plaster; it's like that sort of... freedom. But the first couple of hours is a bit of a pain in the arse. Going for a pee is really a pain in the arse.

Really? Why?
You got zips and undershorts, underarmour - body armour - under that. It's all a bit of a faff. Forget about taking a ****, that's not happening. [laughs].

Is that why Bane's so angry?
Oh yes, ****ing retentive. Totally. Miserable.

How easy is it to breathe through the mask?
Um, it's more psychosomatic. If I panic then it's not easy and if I'm chilled then it's fine. It's got plenty of room to breathe but if I'm a bit panicky doing something, or a bit too high up or whatever, then I'm going to, you know, gasp a bit more. But once again I get used to the mask, I'm happy in it.

How would you define the fight style? Obviously you did Warrior before this... immediately before?
I did Inception after Warrior, then a play, The Long Red Road, with Philip Seymour Hoffman in Chicago. Then Tinker Tailor, This Means War, then The Wettest County [now titled Lawless], then this. Warrior took a year to edit. Took a long time to edit.

So - the fighting style. How is it different to Warrior?
It is brutal and military. It's more military in many ways. MMA [Mixed Martial Arts] is very athletic. It's an athlete's sport. And you've got your Krav Maga and whatnot from Bourne, the Bourne world. Very tight movement, very contained but aimed to kill. To kill, do you know what I mean? And maim. Then you've got the Keysi lot that Batman does I suppose, which is a lot of elbow business. But Bane is brutal. It's not about fighting. It's about just carnage with Bane. Which is different to [Warrior's] Tommy Conlon, who is in the eye of the storm when he's fighting. He has peace of mind. Until he meets his brother and then it's all out of the window. He loses the fight because it implodes on him, you know? Whereas Bane's not that. Bane's a superhero villain. So that's what the violence is there to imply, and the style is heavy handed, heavy footed.

Does it bother you that Bane's not so well known by the broader public? Obviously the comic-book fans will...
...They'll go mental for it, yeah. I think one has to be aware that when you get involved in the Batman family, Batman is owned by so many of the fans already. Everybody has a right to an opinion, and some of the opinions on Batman are very hardcore [laughs] about how it should be done. Now for somebody like me who's a small, small part of a huge vehicle, who has been asked to play a character who has great importance to a world which I've been largely incubated to, there's a certain pressure that comes with that. I respect this is how you want to see your villain, or this is what you think this villain is, and granted, this is what this villain looks like. It's comic books. But I'm also working for Chris Nolan. So I am going to have to trust my director as well to go and deliver the Bane that we're about to deliver together, and I'm standing shoulder to shoulder with a man who I trust and who I've worked with before and who also has also brought a tremendous amount to the Dark Knight and the Batman franchise which people have loved. And they're big, heavy-hitting movies. So my trust and faith is in Chris Nolan, do you know what I mean?

How is it working with Christian Bale?
I love Christian. He's brilliant. He's really good fun. And it's like, he's a really serious actor, he takes the work very seriously, but not himself very seriously. He's a very funny, witty man, very smart. He's a brilliant character actor, and not at all alpha male in the way that there's not enough limelight for everybody to shine around him. So he's not greedy. He has a tremendous humility as a performer. It's a ****ing breath of fresh air to work with somebody like that. And it's very physical.

Because that is the advantage of Bane as a villain...
This is the fight film.

You get to beat him up.
Well, it goes both ways. We beat each other up; we beat the **** out of each other. And he's a big lad, Christian. He's not messing around. I just pull faces and wear tights for a living, do you know what I mean? I'm not a fighter [laughs]. I give him all I've got and I'm like, Yeah! Then he gets up and goes, [does spot-on Bale impression] "That was really good" [claps hands]. And I'm like, "That was all I've got" [laughs]. He's tougher than I am. In real life.

[Kane52630]

Watch the Dark Knight Rises Red Carpet Premiere

http://www.superherohype.com/news/ar...enter-giveaway

NowLive has partnered with Warner Bros. Pictures for the world premiere of The Dark Knight Rises. You can tune into the official livestream of the red carpet premiere using the player below today, Monday, at 6:00 p.m. EST / 3:00 p.m. PST!

Expected to be in attendance from the film are Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Morgan Freeman, and director/writer/producer Christopher Nolan, writers Jonathan Nolan and David S. Goyer, and producers Emma Thomas and Charles Roven.

[kvz5]

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/168...hathaway.jhtml

'Dark Knight Rises' Stars Pick Their Favorite Scenes
Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway and more recall trilogy's best moments at red-carpet premiere.

NEW YORK — As Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy comes to an epic close with "The Dark Knight Rises," now is the time to look back on the series as a whole, as well as anticipating the final installment.

MTV News hit the red-carpet premiere of "The Dark Knight Rises" and spoke with members of the cast about the scenes from the series that have meant the most to them and stuck with them over the years.

Batman himself, Christian Bale, recalled the first scene in which Bruce Wayne shared his idea for the Caped Crusader with Alfred. "There's a scene where Michael Caine's character, Alfred, and myself as Bruce are sitting on the plane and we first talk about the symbol of Batman and who he is and why," Bale said. "That really sets up what is going to happen for the next three movies."

One of the newest additions to the cast, Anne Hathaway also went back to the very start of things for her favorite scene. "Well, in the first film, it's the part where Wayne Manor is burning down, and Bruce Wayne is trapped underneath that beam and Alfred comes and says the words that his father had said to him, 'Why do we fall?' and he pushes it up," she said. "That gets me going every time."

For Gary Oldman, his very first scene working on the film has stuck with him the longest. "It's the first scene that I played in 'Batman Begins,' and that was [when] I got out of the police car on the dock and there was a bevy of criminals that was bound and gagged," he said. "Someone had taken care of them. I was not aware at that point in the story there was a Batman."

The tragic loss of Heath Ledger is never far from anyone's mind when discussing the legacy of the series, and Nestor Carbonell remembered his few scenes with the Joker vividly. "Heath Ledger's performance in ['The Dark Knight'] was so breathtaking, just about any scene with him," he said.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt treasures the entire trilogy's structure rather than one particular scene. "I think each movie has its own necessary place," he said. "There's a beginning, a middle and an end. That's a true trilogy. They talk a lot of trilogies. They say, 'Oh, it's a trilogy.' It's not a trilogy. It's three sequels, but this is really a trilogy. That's what satisfies me as an audience member."

[db85usa]

delete.

[NoMoreDeadCops!]

Day 17 of Empire's TDKR countdown ("Bane's Costume Deconstructed"): http://www.empireonline.com/features...-rises-costume

[Uroboric Forms]

Empire Day 18: Evolution of the Batsuit

http://www.empireonline.com/features...of-the-batsuit

[Dragon_316ca]

http://www.bevnet.com/news/2012/moun...k-knight-rises

DEW TDKR campaign now extends to nearly 20 countries across the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

[kvz5]

Nolan story:

http://www.backstage.com/bso/news-an...07608752.story

[Kane52630]

SNL: The Dark Knight Rises this Weekend!

If you're anything like us, you are just dying with anticipation and excitement for "The Dark Knight Rises" this weekend; it's all we've been talking about all week. And what better way to celebrate the final chapter in Christopher Nolan's incredible and genius Batman trilogy than with some of our own incredible and genius Batman sketches. Enjoy!

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-li...-this-weekend/

[NoMoreDeadCops!]

Day 19 of Empire's TDKR countdown: http://www.empireonline.com/features...er-dark-knight

It's an interview with Wally Pfister.