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Liam Neeson confirms he’ll appear in The Dark Knight Rises

Liam — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:59:38 +0000

I’ve been trying to stay as spoiler-free as possible for The Dark Knight Rises, but when The Social Network actor Josh Pence was cast as a young Ra’s Al Ghul last year it suggested Liam Neeson’s character from Batman Begins may have an influence on the story.

At the time it was mentioned Pence would be playing Ra’s Al Ghul in flashbacks, and now it appears the villain will be in another set of flashbacks with Neeson reprising the role.

Neeson confirmed he’d shot some scenes while talking to ShowBizSpy:

“I can tell you nothing about Dark Knight Rises, seriously,” says Liam. “I was on set for maybe an hour-and-a-half and the director didn’t tell me anything of what it’s about.
“So, I’m being very honest when I say I have no idea what’s going to happen.”

Christopher Nolan likes to keep audiences in the dark until the film hits, but some fans may have already figured out how Ra’s Al Ghul is connected to the third film, and Bane. I’m going to remain willingly oblivious.

The Dark Knight Rises is set for release on July 20th, 2012. Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman will reprise their roles alongside Anne Hathaway (Catwoman), Tom Hardy (Bane), Marion Cotillard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Second trailer for The Dark Knight Rises hits

Liam — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 18:42:38 +0000

Bootlegs have been popping up over the weekend but Warner Bros. has today released the second official trailer for The Dark Knight Rises. It begins with Alfred worrying about Bruce and slowly builds, with Selina Kyle warning him “there’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne”. Then chants begin, a football field crumbles, Bane emerges, and the Batwing roars down a Gotham street. We also get brief glimpses at Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Gary Oldman.

Watch below:

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New poster for The Dark Knight Rises – The Legend Ends

Liam — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 22:37:38 +0000

A Bane-focused prologue for The Dark Knight Rises is currently playing before Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol in IMAX and a new trailer is expected to be released soon, but in the meantime Warner Bros. has released a new teaser poster.

The poster, which could foreshadow some unpleasant events in the film, features Batman’s broken mask on the ground, with Bane (Tom Hardy) stood menacingly in the background.

Check out the full poster below, and click to enlarge.

The Dark Knight Rises prologue announced by Warner Bros.

Liam — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 13:19:52 +0000

A few weeks ago The Dark Knight Rises director Christopher Nolan confirmed we’d be seeing a prologue for the film attached to Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol in IMAX which “is basically the first six, seven minutes of the film. It’s an introduction to Bane, and a taste of the rest of the film.”

Now Warner Bros. has officially announced the event, along with a list of locations where you’ll be able to catch it.

From SHH:

Warner Bros. Pictures’ “The Dark Knight Rises” — the epic conclusion to filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy — is one of the most anticipated films of 2012, but moviegoers won’t have to wait until next year to see the six-minute opening sequence of the film. The film’s prologue will be unveiled exclusively in select 70mm IMAX® theatres worldwide. The announcement was made today by Dan Fellman, President of Domestic Distribution, and Veronika Kwan-Rubinek, President of International Distribution, Warner Bros. Pictures.
The Prologue will be released in North America on December 16, and in the UK on December 21, 2011. Additional international dates vary by territory and will be announced soon.
In making the 2008 blockbuster “The Dark Knight,” Nolan was the first to use IMAX® cameras in a major motion picture release, and, as now, audiences were given an advance look at that film’s prologue months prior to the Summer 2008 opening. Nolan employed the extremely high-resolution cameras even more extensively on “The Dark Knight Rises”—including the film’s prologue—to achieve unprecedented crispness and clarity and a truly immersive experience for the moviegoers.
Christopher Nolan stated, “Our experience on ‘The Dark Knight’ shooting and projecting IMAX 15 perf 65mm/70mm film was inspiring. The immersive quality of the image goes beyond any other filmmaking tool available, and in revisiting Gotham, we were determined to shoot even more of the movie in this unique format. Giving the fans an early look at an IMAX sequence is a great way to draw attention to what I believe will be an incredible way to experience our story when it comes out next summer.”
Following is a list of the theatres in North America in which the Prologue of “The Dark Knight Rises” will be revealed on December 16th:
Market – Theatre – City
Austin, TX – IMAX Theater Austin – Austin
Boston, MA – Jordan’s IMAX – Natick
Boston, MA – IMAX 3D Theatre in Reading – Reading
Calgary, AB – Scotiabank Theatre Chinook 16 – Calgary
Chantilly, VA/Washington, DC – Udvar-Hazy Center IMAX – Chantilly
Chicago, IL – Navy Pier IMAX Theatre – Chicago
Des Moines, IA – SCI IMAX Dome Theater – Des Moines
Detroit, MI – Henry Ford IMAX – Dearborn
Edmonton, AB – Scotiabank Theatre Edmonton – Edmonton
Harrisburg, PA – Whitaker Center for Science & the Arts – Harrisburg
Houston, TX – Houston Marq*e Stadium 22 + IMAX – Houston
Indianapolis – White River IMAX – Indianapolis
Los Angeles, CA – Irvine Spectrum 20 + IMAX – Irvine
Los Angeles, CA – RAVE 18 + IMAX – Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA – Ontario Palace Stadium 22 + IMAX – Ontario
Los Angeles, CA – Citywalk Stadium 19 with IMAX – Universal City
Madison, WI – Star 18 Fitchburg with IMAX – Fitchburg
Miami, FL – AutoNation IMAX – Fort Lauderdale
Minneapolis, MN – Great Clips IMAX – Apple Valley
Montreal, QC – Cinema Banque Scotia Montreal – Montreal
Nashville,TN – Opry Mills Stadium 20 + IMAX – Nashville
New York, NY – Lincoln Square 13 with IMAX – New York
New York, NY – Palisades IMAX – West Nyack
Omaha, NE – Star Cinema 16 with IMAX – Council Bluffs
Orlando, FL – Pointe Orlando Stadium 20 + IMAX – Orlando
Ottawa, ON – Silvercity Gloucester + IMAX – Gloucester
Palm Springs – Desert IMAX Theatre – Cathedral City
Philadelphia, PA – IMAX & the Tropicana – Atlantic City
Philadelphia, PA – Tuttleman IMAX–Franklin Institute – Philadelphia
Phoenix, AZ – Arizona Mills 25 with IMAX – Tempe
Providence, RI – Providence Place 16 with IMAX – Providence
Quebec City, QC – IMAX Le Theatre At Quebec – Quebec City
Sacramento, CA – Esquire IMAX – Sacramento
San Antonio, TX – IMAX at RiverCenter – San Antonio
San Francisco, CA – Metreon 16 with IMAX & ETX – San Francisco
Seattle, WA – Boeing IMAX–Pacific Science Center – Seattle
Tampa, FL – Museum of Science and Industry – Tampa
Toronto, ON – Coliseum 12 Mississauga + IMAX – Mississauga
Toronto, ON – Scotiabank Theatre Toronto + IMAX – Toronto
Toronto, ON – Colossus 18 Woodbridge + IMAX – Woodbridge-Vaughan
Vancouver, BC – Colossus Langley + IMAX – Langley
Vancouver, BC – Silvercity Riverport 18 + IMAX – Richmond
Below is a list of the theatres in the UK in which the Prologue of “The Dark Knight Rises” will be revealed on December 21st:
UK – BFI London – London
UK – National Media Museum IMAX – Bradford
UK – Glasgow Science Centre IMAX Cinema – Glasgow
UK – Odeon Manchester IMAX @ The Printworks – Manchester
Opening on July 20, 2012, “The Dark Knight Rises” features an international all-star cast, led by Oscar® winner Christian Bale (“The Fighter”) in the dual role of Bruce Wayne/Batman. The film also stars Anne Hathaway, as Selina Kyle; Tom Hardy, as Bane; Oscar® winner Marion Cotillard (“La Vie en Rose”), as Miranda Tate; and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as John Blake. Reprising their roles from both “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight,” Oscar® winner Michael Caine (“The Cider House Rules”) plays Alfred; Gary Oldman is Commissioner Gordon; and Oscar® winner Morgan Freeman (“Million Dollar Baby”) plays Lucius Fox.
Nolan directed “The Dark Knight Rises” from a screenplay by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan, story by Christopher Nolan & David S. Goyer. The film is produced by Emma Thomas, Christopher Nolan and Charles Roven, who previously teamed on “Batman Begins” and the record-breaking blockbuster “The Dark Knight.” Benjamin Melniker, Michael E. Uslan, Kevin De La Noy and Thomas Tull are the executive producers, with Jordan Goldberg serving as co-producer. “The Dark Knight Rises” is based upon characters appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. Batman created by Bob Kane.
“The Dark Knight Rises” will be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company. The prologue has been rated PG-13 by the MPAA for “some violence.”

Christopher Nolan and Tom Hardy talk The Dark Knight Rises

Liam — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 18:19:33 +0000

In the latest issue of Empire Magazine The Dark Knight Rises director Christopher Nolan spoke about “finishing Batman and Bruce Wayne’s story” in the film, and revealed that Rises picks up 8 years after the events of The Dark Knight (which is a long time, Alfred must be on the verge of retirement).

Tom Hardy also spoke about Bane’s “brutal” and “nasty” fighting style which is “all about carnage”.

Excepts from the article have been posted on Empire‘s site:

“It’s really all about finishing Batman and Bruce Wayne’s story. We left him in a very precarious place. Perhaps surprisingly for some people, our story picks up quite a bit later, eight years after The Dark Knight. So he’s an older Bruce Wayne; he’s not in a great state.
“With Bane, we’re looking to give Batman a challenge he hasn’t had before. With our choice of villain and with our choice of story we’re testing Batman both physically as well as mentally.”
Speaking of physical challenges, what can Tom Hardy tell us about Bane? “He’s brutal. Brutal. He’s a big dude who’s incredibly clinical, in the fact that he has a result-based and oriented fighting style. It’s not about fighting. It’s about carnage. The style is heavy-handed, heavy-footed, it’s nasty. Anything from small-joint manipulation to crushing skulls, crushing rib cages, stamping on shins and knees and necks and collarbones and snapping heads off and tearing his fists through chests, ripping out spinal columns. He is a terrorist in mentality as well as brutal action.”
Costume designer Lindy Hemming also lets drop a few clues to his backstory as she talks about Bane’s look. On the mask, she says, “He was injured early in his story. He’s suffering from pain and needs gas to survive. He can’t survive the pain without the mask. The pipes from the mask go back along his jawline and feed into the thing at his back, where there are two cannisters.”

Nolan also said the prologue which will be attached to Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol in IMAX “is basically the first six, seven minutes of the film. It’s an introduction to Bane, and a taste of the rest of the film.” Ghost Protocol hits IMAX on December 16 (5 days before the general release on December 21).

New The Dark Knight Rises set videos

Alex — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 13:02:35 +0000

Anarchy ensues on the streets of Gotham City, at least that’s what we get out of the recent batch of videos coming from the set of The Dark Knight Rises, now filming in New York. Three videos showing different takes from what looks like an important scene in the movie found their way onto YouTube and thanks to IGN, we have them here for you. As always, if you want to go into The Dark Knight Rises spoiler-free, I recommend you skip this.

In the last video we see Batman going up against Bane in the middle of the street, surrounded by people beating the crap out of each other. SPOILER, if you ask me, it doesn’t seem like he’s winning that fight. Also, with so many extras on the set, this looks really expensive, not to mention they are filming on Wall Street no less. This could end up costing easily $250 million when done. But considering The Dark Knight made over $1 billion in box office receipts worldwide, Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. spared no expenses on this one.

There’s also a video showing some photos of Batman and Bane from the set:

Directed by Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight Rises stars Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Cillian Murphy, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine and Liam Neeson. Set to open July 20th 2012, The Dark Knight Rises is easily one of the most highly anticipated movies of next year and videos like this only serve to send the hype meter into overdrive.

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The Dark Knight Rises prologue attached to Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol in IMAX

Liam — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 11:53:52 +0000

Word from /Film and FirstShowing suggests Warner Bros. will be attaching a 6 minute prologue from The Dark Knight Rises to Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol when it is released in IMAX on December 16 (5 days before the general release on December 21).

Warner Bros. did a similar thing with The Dark Knight in 2007 when it attached The Joker opening sequence to I Am Legend on IMAX screens. No word yet on what the 6 minute prologue will contain (probably some Bane and/or Catwoman), but i’m going to try and avoid it. I want to see the whole movie spoiler-free next July, and seeing 6 minutes of it (plus all the trailers) months before hand will probably ruin that.

Warner Bros. has yet to confirm this, but with multiple sites hearing the same thing it’s likely to happen.

New set images of Anne Hathaway in her Catwoman costume

Liam — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 15:47:13 +0000

Warner Bros. released our first official look at Anne Hathaway in her Catwoman costume back in August and it seemed Christopher Nolan had replaced the traditional ‘cat ears’ with hi-tech goggles.

However some new set images have appeared online over at Just Jared of Anne Hathaway in her costume, and she’s wearing cat ears.

In past incarnations the cat ears have mainly been used for aesthetic reasons, giving the character a more feline appearance to fit with the name, but here Nolan seems to have given them a practical use. The primary function of these hi-tech goggles is still unknown, but when not in use they could give the appearance of cat ears on top of her head. If that’s the idea it’s quite a smart and interesting take on the design, but we’ll have to see if they work on-screen when The Dark Knight Rises hits next July.

You can see more set images, which include Christian Bale in his Batman suit and Gary Oldman as Comissioner Gordon, by clicking here.

Superheroes at the box office (Part 9)

Alex — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 13:00:14 +0000

After a somewhat long break we are back to superheroes. Last time around we were in 2008 looking at what was arguably the best year yet for the genre. Today we’ll look at a few comic book characters brought for the first time on the big screen, an original black hero, two sequels, a spin-off and a once considered impossible to adapt graphic novel. But first there’s a little something that must be done.

Before we get going I have to give Spider-Man 3 a second look just to clear some things. I understand very well that last time I came across way to harsh on Sam Raimi, blaming him for a lot more then he deserved blaming. What I didn’t mention was how Sony handled the project and how they forced Venom into Raimi’s story with a crowbar. This explains why the Symbiote plot was so underdeveloped and why it seemed shoehorned into the overall plot. Now I’m not saying Raimi is a saint, he could have handled certain plot points a lot better and his direction was all over the place compared to previous entries. Throwing that to the side, I blame Sony and only Sony for how Spider-Man 4 was handled (read cancelled) and I have to be honest, if it wasn’t for Mark Webb (500 Days of Summer) directing The Amazing Spider-Man, I would not be interested in that reboot.

Back to 2008, we start with Wanted, the Mark Miller comic turned big budget movie starring Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman. This isn’t your typical superhero but the dude can curve bullets and he fights a secret worldwide assassin organization, so you could say he qualifies to be in here. Wanted made $134.5 million in North America and $341.6 million worldwide. A sequel has been considered and then dropped but there’s still a chance we might get Wanted 2 in the future.

Released on the 2nd of July 2008 starring Will Smith, Hancock became the first original superhero movie to hit big. It made $227.9 million in North American and $624.3 million worldwide, mostly thanks to the huge drawing power of its star, Will Smith. Hancock 2 is categorized as being in development on IMDB for a 2013 proposed release.

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army came out on July 11th 2008. You see, the original Hellboy (2004), while loved by fans, wasn’t a particularly big hit grossing only $99.3 million worldwide on a $66 million budget, so Sony dropped it. Few years later, Universal stepped in and gave Guillermo del Toro $85 million to make the sequel fans expected. Hellboy 2: The Golden Army was well received by just about everyone but, turns out releasing just a week before the most hotly anticipated title of the year isn’t a good idea, even more so when said title is also a superhero movie. With $160.3 million worldwide Hellboy 2 didn’t cover its budget so the 3rd planned entry is now on hold. Unfortunately with time passing by so fast and Ron Perlman (Hellboy) not getting any younger (61), not to mention Guillermo del Toro being so busy with other projects, Hellboy 3 is starting to look like a pipe dream.

July 18th 2008, the day The Dark Knight opened in theaters. Now for those living under a rock, this is the sequel to 2005′s Batman Begins, the fantastic reboot of the cape crusader handled by the brilliant mind of Christopher Nolan. Now Batman Begins made $372.7 million worldwide, a good number, certainly not enough to prepare us for how big The Dark Knight would become. I won’t make a big deal out of it but the untimely death of Heath Ledger (28 at the time), playing the Joker in the movie, turned more then a few heads and ears. But it was the movie that kept building hype and if Spider-Man 3 taught us anything, hugely anticipated popular superhero movies can become extremely popular at the box office. The Dark Knight was no different, grossing $158.4 million opening weekend, a new record at the time (second today). It generated $533.3 million in North America becoming the 2nd highest grosser ever (3rd today) and by far the biggest superhero movie (a title it still holds). The Dark Knight made over $1 billion worldwide (4th movie to ever get there) turning Batman in Warner’s biggest moneymaker and going as far as having them move Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (that was set to open in November 2008) to summer 2009 just so they had a big movie the following year, since they already had their fill for 2008. The Dark Knight Rises, followup to this, will open in July 2012.

As you might remember, 2008 started bad for superhero movies with the godawful Superhero Movie. It was only fitting that it would end on that same note with The Spirit. This is a movie I can only describe in so many words and those would be: REALLY BAD. The Spirit made only $39 million worldwide, so a massive disappointment on all accounts.

Watchmen, the highly anticipated big screen adaptation of the most celebrated graphic novel ever, came out in March 2009 under the direction of Zack Snyder of 300 fame. Thought by many to be impossible to adapt, making Watchmen was anything but an easy task. When it finally came out, the movie was appreciated for a lot of things it did (or tried to do) but not nearly as much as I think it deserved. For anyone interested in a more complex, brainy, superhero flick, I definitely recommend you watch this. It gets a lot more hate then it should, blue penis aside. A 163 minute R-rated superhero movie is not what you would call commercial so Watchmen only made $185.2 million worldwide on a $130 million budget. Warner were not too happy about that.

In May 2009 it was time for Fox to dust off that old X-Men license once again with a spin-off titled X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The movie tells the story of Wolverine and how he became the character we knew in the X-Men movie trilogy. Arguably the most popular of the X-Men, this was the obvious choice for a spin-off and it payed off, at least financially since fans didn’t particularly enjoy this one all that much. On a budget of $150 million, X-Men Origins: Wolverine made $373 million worldwide and a sequel simply titled The Wolverine is planned for sometime in 2013 (and yes, I am well aware they are not calling it a proper sequel).

Finally on today’s order is Kick-Ass, a weird yet awesome flick based again on a Mark Miller (Wanted) comic. Coming out in April 2010, just before the big summer craziness, Kick-Ass had a lot of internet hype that unfortunately didn’t translate into big numbers at the box office. It made only $96.1 million worldwide on a $30 million budget, so at least it made back some money. The idea of a sequel has been thrown around but so far nothing is certain.

We started in 1978 and we’re already in 2010, now there’s just one more part left to go and I promise it won’t take as long as this one. Until then, if you’ve missed any of the previous parts, you can check them right here in the links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7 and Part 8.

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Christian Bale talks The Dark Knight Rises

Liam — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 18:38:37 +0000

The Dark Knight Rises has been filming since May, and isn’t scheduled to finish until November. Naturally the cast haven’t been that talkative due to the secrecy surrounding the production, but in a new interview Christian Bale spoke about working with Christopher Nolan again, completing the Batman trilogy, and being “impressed” with Tom Hardy.

Update: Warner Bros. has asked us to remove the quotes as the interview was taken during a set visit and wasn’t meant to be posted by the site until closer to the film’s release.

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