Proving that there is still power in print media, UK movie magazine Empire has a cover story this month on The Dark Knight Rises, complete with a Christopher Nolan interview. In a tantalizing preview on the mag’s site, some new details on the film are revealed.
Here’s the big news: A six-to-seven minute prologue will be screened in front of IMAX showings of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, starting Dec. 21.” The segment will be “an introduction to Bane, and a taste of the rest of the film,” the director said.
The most surprising tidbit? The movie takes place eight years after 2008′s The Dark Knight. Nolan says: “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.”
There also looks to be a good deal of Bane talk in the article, with costume designer Lindy Hemming explaining how the “Venom” will work in the film, saying, “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.”
The Dark Knight Rises is schedule for release on July 20, 2012.
November 21st, 2011 at 5:00 pm
Wow, that’s SO awesome!
November 21st, 2011 at 5:01 pm
I can’t wait for this movie, it’s going to be great despite the fact that it’s a follow-up to the one of the greatest movies ever!
November 21st, 2011 at 5:27 pm
I Can’t wait.
November 21st, 2011 at 5:36 pm
I’m not sure about the eight years later thing. The casual fan, or serious fan like myself, may have little interest in an aging, past his prime Batman, if that is indeed the direction taken. The finale of Nolan’s trilogy does not have to end with the “end” of Batman. We shall see.
November 21st, 2011 at 5:50 pm
@AeroRep, what, you didn’t like “the Dark Night Returns”? It features an aging Batman and is widely considered one of the best Batman stories ever.
November 21st, 2011 at 6:00 pm
i’ll probably watch the 6 minutes trailer of this during M:I-ghost protocol, then leave
November 21st, 2011 at 6:07 pm
Batman’s Gotta Gun!
–J.
November 21st, 2011 at 6:22 pm
I have been a Batman fan for 40 odd years and find Christian Bale’s portrayal of Batman superb.
I have enjoyed both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight so it comes as no surprise for me to be looking forward to this new film…The Dark Knight Rises.(Do all us Batman fans a BIG favour and DO NOT KILL Batman OFF PLEASE). We have heard that Batman will be fighting Bane and this results in Bane apparently “breaking Batman’s back”…..No Way as we want another future Batman film please?
November 21st, 2011 at 6:38 pm
I wonder if the aging Batman thing is a little nod to The Dark Knight Returns. I’m curious to see if they mention the Joker, and also what gonna happen. Nolan is a genius, but I’m hoping he’s not gonna put a Shoemaker on this one… It does seem interesting if they can get away with putting 4 or 5 villians in this one.
November 21st, 2011 at 8:09 pm
Nolan is doing a self-contained trilogy so it doesn’t matter if Batman does die. There will most likely be a new Batman movie in a few years when Warners get their act together and work towards a Justice League franchise like Marvel is doing with Avengers.
November 21st, 2011 at 8:33 pm
Whatever. It’s gotten to where DC doesn’t even care to blow up seventy years of continuity. Why not? It’s simple. We kill the Batman.
November 21st, 2011 at 9:21 pm
Wasing Batman only in his mid 20s in the first two movies anyway? Aging 8 years wont make his too old or put him out of his prime really…
November 21st, 2011 at 9:21 pm
I meant *wasnt
November 21st, 2011 at 10:01 pm
Excited, but history shows that three-quels in comic book movies are never good, and almost always much worse than what went before… Batman Forever, Spider-man 3, X-men 3, Superman 3, Blade 3…
November 22nd, 2011 at 2:17 am
If this is nolans last outing with the dark knight, although a great shame as this trilogy will b and has been skip much better than the last attempt with the exception of the 1989 version. Any way my point being doesn’t he realise that there could potentially b another franchise in arkham asylum n city.
November 22nd, 2011 at 4:06 am
Perhaps when he says he’s not in great state, he means mentally, not physically?
November 22nd, 2011 at 5:11 am
@CoolWhip – yeah, because getting hit, shot and/or stabbed most nights for 8 years won’t do anything to your long term health. Just ask any thirtysomething who’s played ANY contact sport for as long as Bats has been doing his thing. Don’t care how much his armor ‘protects’ him, there’s a lot of stress. And we’re not even counting the sleep deprivation…
November 22nd, 2011 at 7:03 am
DC has never really had a serious 70-year long Batman continuity anyway. The Golden-Age Batman was retconned into being from Earth-2, the Silver-Age Batman was retconned into being from Earth-1, then he was retconned into being from the post-Crisis earth, then he was retconned again after Zero Hour, then he was retconned into being from new Earth-prime after Infinite Crisis, and then came the DCnU retcon. All the while, his origin keeps changing, his villains origins keep changing, whether or not he ever caught his parents’ killer changes, and his whole personality has been overhauled several times.
There was no consistent 70 year continuity that was tossed away by the DCnU. I’d argue that throughout his history in fact he’s had more continuity retconned than kept, except for the fundamentals (parents killed by criminal, archenemy the Joker, used to have a Robin)
November 22nd, 2011 at 7:06 am
I don’t know why people are acting like the 8 year Batman career is a big deal or like this is turning the franchise into Dark Knight Returns. Before the DCnU reboot we were all reading under the premise that Batman had a 10 year career. The Batman that faced Bane in Knightfall was one who had been Batman for 10 years plus. Unless you’ve felt Batman was over the hill since the 80s, when the 10 year timeline was first set in stone.
November 22nd, 2011 at 7:41 am
I think its realistic. When TDK ended, my first thought was, “How will running from the cops all the time take its toll on him?” It appears, they intend to let that drive the film. Good call. I have faith in them and I think it will be good.
I think “trilog-itis”-the tendency to make film series’ that have greater storytelling potential into three film arcs that really only let the middle film DO anything-will fell this potentially great story, but we’ll see.
November 22nd, 2011 at 8:54 am
I think it was the original Superman and Batman franchises of the 80s/90s that showed studios and audiences that these movies should be done as trilogies (if that long). Besides, with the time gap between movie-making, the actors start to age beyond that age that audiences (especially, young ones) want for their heroes. Unless you are setting it in a future Dark Knight time where the characters are supposed to be older. I’d be up for “Days of Future Past” with some older X-men.
November 22nd, 2011 at 9:56 am
Rick – I’d argue that it was Star Wars that was more instrumental in making the trilogy the ideal number for a movie franchise. Besides, by the time the Batman movies came around movie trilogies were already well-established. Besides, neither Batman nor Superman stopped at three movies anyway, and both were considered to have jumped the shark by their third installments, so I wouldn’t call them instrumental in popularizing trilogies. If anything both were arguments for stopping at two movies.
November 22nd, 2011 at 1:02 pm
Hasnt this already been spoiled? They didn’t use the most secret methods when filming either. And who knew this about Talia. Come on dead giveaway when you name the character the same way as the comic. And Nolan doesn’t expect anyone to notice?
November 22nd, 2011 at 2:55 pm
Dark Knight left off with Batman as a fugitive with a multiple murder wrap. I hope this doesn’t get glossed over because it’s eight years later in the new film.
November 22nd, 2011 at 8:48 pm
Bane will break his back. Batman will be forced to use a gun & kill him. Batman is forced/compelled into retirement. Then we get a dark knight returns movie or batman beyond movie.
November 22nd, 2011 at 11:08 pm
As soon as I read about the next one being Nolan’s last and that Warner Brothers was going to reboot for the next Batman movie, I immediately predicted that Bruce was going to die in this movie. And I hope I’m right. I have no idea why people are so dead set against this. It’s not like they’re not just going to make new Batman movies with a different Batman anyway. It’s not ruining a thing. And it means we’ll have a complete Batman story with a definitive beginning, middle and end. Superhero books in general don’t have “ends” and there is no character that should have one more than Batman. He’s a tragic figure, his story has to end in his own death. If you kill Superman at the end of his movies? It’s a stunt. Spider-Man? It’s a stunt. Captain America? It’s a stunt. Batman? It’s the only ending that makes sense.
November 23rd, 2011 at 1:47 am
has everyone forgotten the teaser trailer? gordon says “the batman must come back.” bruce says “what if he doesn’t exist anymore?”. I would take that to mean that no one has seen the batman in the 8 years since the dark knight. So Bruce is in bad shape.
November 24th, 2011 at 12:22 am
I love extended previews, but asking us to pay good money for a Tom Cruise movie to see it is like asking us to play russian roulette with a revolver to get an ice cream sundae after supper.
November 24th, 2011 at 1:32 pm
Newsarama is a Flog
November 27th, 2011 at 9:25 am
Seems obvious that Dark Knight rises will refer to Bane breaking Bruce’s back (and spirit) early on in the movie, and then the struggle, physically and spirtually, Bruce will have to undergo to “rise again” so to speak, and eventually defeat him. Hence the Gordon quote.