Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

The Dark Knight is a 2008 American superhero film based on the fictional DC Comics character Batman. The film is the sequel to the 2005 release Batman Begins, which rebooted the Batman franchise after an eight-year hiatus. Christopher Nolan, director of Batman Begins, continues as the director of the sequel, which stars Christian Bale again as Batman and Heath Ledger as the Joker. The Dark Knight introduces a new version of the Joker, based on the villain's original appearances in comic book lore. The character Batman also becomes more of a detective, dealing with the escalated situation from the end of Batman Begins as well as the dilemma of his vigilante crusade.

Nolan filmed The Dark Knight primarily in Chicago, as he had done in Batman Begins, as well as several other locations in and outside the United States. The director also used an IMAX camera to film four major action sequences, including the Joker's first appearance. The Batsuit was redesigned, with a cowl allowing Bale to move his head, and a recreation of the Batcycle known as the Batpod will be introduced. Composers Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, who composed Batman Begins, will return to score The Dark Knight.

The studio undertook a viral marketing campaign for The Dark Knight in which websites were created so Batman fan collaboration would reveal items such as new screenshots from the film. The film will also be marketed by selling related toys and video games, as well as a direct-to-DVD anime that is set between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight has a tentative release date of July 18, 2008 in the United States[2] and July 25 in the United Kingdom.[3]

Premise
The film will detail Batman, Lieutenant James Gordon, and District Attorney Harvey Dent rounding up the criminals that plague Gotham City. In particular, they will battle a mysterious criminal mastermind known only as The Joker.[4]


[edit] Cast and characters
Christian Bale reprises the role of Bruce Wayne / Batman, a billionaire who has dedicated himself to being the vigilante protector of Gotham City in the form of Batman, the Dark Knight. Bale felt confident in his reprisal because of the positive response to his performance in Batman Begins.[5] He trained in the Keysi Fighting Method,[6] and performed many of his own stunts.[5] The actor described Batman's dilemma as whether "[his crusade is] something that has an end? Can he quit and have an ordinary life? The kind of manic intensity someone has to have to maintain the passion and the anger that they felt as a child, takes an effort after awhile, to keep doing that. At some point, you have to exorcise your demons."[7]

Heath Ledger plays the Joker, a criminal who is investigated by Batman after committing a robbery and a double homicide at the end of the first film. He leaves a Joker playing card at the scene of his crimes. The actor described his interpretation of the character as being a "psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy".[8] To prepare for the role, Ledger lived alone in a hotel room for six weeks, formulating the character's posture, voice and psychology.[9] He started a diary, in which he wrote the Joker's thoughts and feelings to guide himself during his performance,[8] and he also looked at the books Batman: The Killing Joke and Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth.[9] Ledger also cited inspiration in A Clockwork Orange and Sid Vicious.[10] Ultimately, "there’s nothing that consistent", as his main objective was to frighten the audience.[10] Playing the role put a strain on the actor's sleeping patterns.[8] Before Ledger was confirmed as the Joker in July 2006,[11] actors Paul Bettany,[12] Lachy Hulme,[13] Adrien Brody,[14] and Robin Williams[15] had publicly expressed interest in the role.

Aaron Eckhart plays district attorney Harvey Dent / Two-Face,[16] for whom battling the Joker takes a dark toll. Eckhart described the character of Harvey Dent as coming from the same world as Batman, but simultaneously being apart from it. "I'm looking for the tension between the two, the similarities between the two. I want to find what's similar to Batman and then find what's opposite to him," Eckhart said.[17] Before Eckhart was cast in February 2007, actors Liev Schreiber,[18] Josh Lucas,[19] and Ryan Phillippe[20] had expressed interest in the role.[21]
Maggie Gyllenhaal plays assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes, a childhood friend of Bruce and one of the few to know he is Batman. Actress Katie Holmes, who portrayed Rachel Dawes in the previous film, was purported in August 2005 by producer Charles Roven to be signed for The Dark Knight.[22] In January 2007, Holmes had turned down an offer to reprise her role as Rachel Dawes due to scheduling conflicts,[23] and the role was recast two months later.[24]
Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth: Bruce Wayne's trusted butler who tends to Wayne Manor.
Gary Oldman as Lieutenant James Gordon: A member of the Gotham City Police Department who is one of the few uncorrupted officers in Gotham City. Melinda McGraw and Nathan Gamble portray James Gordon's wife and son respectively.[25]
Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox: The recently-promoted CEO of Wayne Enterprises who had supplied Bruce Wayne with the gear necessary to carry out Batman's mission.
Eric Roberts as Sal Maroni, who now leads Carmine Falcone's mob group.[26] Bob Hoskins and James Gandolfini were reported to have also auditioned for the part.[27]
Nestor Carbonell as Mayor Anthony Garcia.[28][29]
Michael Jai White plays Gambol, a gang leader at war with Maroni.[26] David Banner auditioned for the role.[30]
Anthony Michael Hall has been cast in an unnamed role.[31] Actors Beatrice Rosen and Joshua Harto are also cast into The Dark Knight in unnamed roles.[32] Edison Chen cameos as a villain.[33] United States Senator Patrick Leahy, who has served as an extra in the 1997 Batman & Robin and also did a guest voice on Batman: The Animated Series, will have a cameo in The Dark Knight with Bale's Batman and Ledger's Joker.[34]

Musician Dwight Yoakam was approached for a cameo role as either a dirty Gotham City cop or a banker who faces the Joker, but he turned down the role to focus on his album Dwight Sings Buck.[35]


[edit] Production
Before the release of Batman Begins, screenwriter David S. Goyer wrote a treatment for two sequels, introducing the Joker and Harvey Dent. Originally, the Joker would scar Dent during his trial in the third film.[36] On July 31, 2006, Warner Bros. Pictures officially announced the initiation of production for the sequel, titled The Dark Knight.[11] The Nolan brothers took turns each month to revise the screenplay,[37][38] and were highly secretive. Christopher refused to let Heath Ledger leave his house with a copy of the script.[39] Christopher Nolan considered The Dark Knight's storytelling structure similar to Batman Begins as a "very conventional drama". The director found the major challenges in structuring the story to be dealing with a larger cast and a story of a more epic scale.[40]

The Dark Knight is the first live-action Batman film without the word "Batman" in its title, which Christian Bale noted as signaling, "This take on Batman of mine and Chris' is very different from any of the others."[41] Christopher Nolan described the sequel's theme as escalation, continuing how Batman Begins ended, with "things having to get worse before they get better."[42] The director indicated that the film will continue the themes of Batman Begins such as justice vs. revenge and Bruce Wayne's father issues,[43] but will also show more of Batman as a detective, as "[they]'re trying to move the story forward."[5]

As with Batman Begins, the limited series Batman: The Long Halloween was a major influence on the storyline, particularly in the depiction of Dent's story. Goyer stated, "The Long Halloween is the preeminent influence on both movies."[44] For the film's interpretation of the Joker, the writers spent much time researching his appearances in the comics, before Jonathan Nolan suggested the character's first two appearances as their influence. Nolan, "felt like we've actually come around to something eerily close to those first two stories."[5] Jerry Robinson, one of the co-creators of the basic concept for the Joker in the comics, is involved as a consultant on the portrayal of the character.[45]


[edit] Filming

Director Christopher Nolan (far left) and actor Heath Ledger (in make-up) filming a scene in The Dark Knight with an IMAX cameraIn October 2006, film location manager Robin Higgs visited Liverpool to scout locations, mainly along the city's waterfront, for filming The Dark Knight. Other scouted locations included Yorkshire, Glasgow, and parts of London.[46] Producer Charles Roven stated in August 2006 that principal photography would begin in March 2007,[47] but filming was pushed back to April.[48] For its IMAX release, Nolan had four major action sequences, including the Joker's introduction, shot in the format. Nolan wished he could have shot the entire film in IMAX, as he felt "if you could take an IMAX camera to Mount Everest or outer space, you could use it in a feature movie."[49]

Warner Bros. chose to film in Chicago for 13 weeks,[50] because Nolan had a "truly remarkable experience" filming part of Batman Begins there.[38] There, the film was entitled Rory's First Kiss to lower the visibility of production, but the local media uncovered the tactic.[51] Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times commented on the absurdity of the technique, "Is there a Bat-fan in the world that doesn't know Rory's First Kiss is actually The Dark Knight, which has been filming in Chicago for weeks?" later adding, "When you identify the studio, director and stars, even the most casual movie fan is an imdb.com click away from determining the movie's real title."[52] Production of The Dark Knight in Chicago will generate $45 million in the city's economy and create thousands of jobs.[53] The crew shot in Chicago from April 18-24 2007[54] for the film's prologue involving the Joker.[55] They returned to shoot from June 9, 2007 to early September.[53]

According to actor Michael Caine, the film would also shoot in London, Los Angeles and Baltimore.[56] While planning a stunt with the Batmobile in a special effects facility near Chertsey, England in September 2007, a technician was killed when his car crashed. None of the actors were on set.[57] The following month in London at the defunct Battersea Power Station, a rigged 200-foot fireball was filmed, reportedly for an opening sequence for The Dark Knight. The fireball prompted calls from local residents who feared a terrorist attack on the station.[58]

Filming took place in Hong Kong from November 6-November 11, 2007[59][60] at the Central-Mid-Levels escalators, Queen's Road, The Center, and International Finance Centre.[61] The city's walled city of Kowloon influenced the Narrows in Batman Begins.[62] The shoot hired helicopters and C130 aircraft,[59] and a stunt where Batman jumps off a skyscraper was filmed at the International Finance Centre.[60] The shoot was deeply controversial. Officials were concerned over possible noise pollution and traffic,[60] though letters to the city's residents promise the sound level would be similar to that of buses.[59] Environmentalists criticized the filmmakers' request to tenants of the waterfront skyscrapers to keep their lights on all night for beautiful cinematography, calling it a waste of energy.[60]


[edit] Design

The Batcycle, also known as the Batpod, for The Dark KnightFor The Dark Knight, designers modified the Batsuit, adding wide elastic banding to help bind the costume to Christian Bale, and suggestive of sophisticated technology. It was constructed from 200 individual pieces of rubber, fiberglass, metallic mesh, and nylon. The new cowl was modeled after a motorcycle helmet and separated from the neck piece, allowing Bale to turn his head left and right and nod up and down.[63] The cowl is equipped to show white lenses over the eyes when the character turns on his Bat-sonar detection.[64] The gauntlets had their razors made retractable and able to be fired.[63]

The movie introduces the Batpod, which is a recreation of the Batcycle. Nathan Crowley, who designed the Tumbler for Batman Begins, designed six models (built by Chris Corbould) for use in the film's production, in anticipation of accidents as well as needed crash scenes. The Batpod is steered by shoulder instead of hand, and the rider's arms are protected by sleeve-like shields. The bike has 508 millimeter (20-inch) front and rear tires, and made to appear as if it is armed with grappling hooks, cannons, and machine guns. The engines are located in the hubs of the wheels, which are set 3 1/2 feet (1067 mm) apart on either side of the tank. The rider lies belly down on the tank, which can move up and down in order to dodge any incoming gunfire that Batman may encounter. Stuntman Jean-Pierre Goy will double for Christian Bale during the riding sequences in The Dark Knight.[65]


[edit] Music
In an October 2006 interview, composer Hans Zimmer confirmed he and James Newton Howard would be returning to score The Dark Knight, teaming up as they did on Batman Begins.[66] Zimmer said that the main Batman theme was purposely introduced at the end of Batman Begins and be fleshed out in the sequel as the character develops.[67] In July 2007, Zimmer reported that he was experimenting with new ideas with the score for The Dark Knight. The composer believed that the character Batman had not yet earned his score in the previous film and that the score would be earned in the sequel. According to Zimmer, "I now want to go and complete that theme... I felt I had a good start, and now it would be really nice to develop that world a little further."[68]



LatinoReview had a chance to chat with a Warner Bros executive, who talked about a scene in "The Dark Knight," which introduces us to The Joker.

Spoilers Ahead:

"'The Dark Knight' begins with The Joker robbing a huge bank. The bank is where the mob and all the gangs in Gotham keep all of their money. The Joker takes this money and holds it 'ransom.' The Joker then says to the mob and the gangs of Gotham, 'If you help me take down Batman, you'll get your money back. If not, I'm going to burn it all.' This is how The Joker assembles his army to take down Batman."

We've already seen lots of pictures of the bank robbery and we know that The Joker will need to find a way to recruit all the criminals. This seems like a good way to go about it. "The Dark Knight" is scheduled to hit theaters on July 18th, 2008.


According to Film ick, the visual effects company Framestore CFC will be handling the CG effects for Two-Face in "The Dark Knight." Apparently, the ugly, disfigured side of Harvey Dent's face will not be entirely make-up, it will be done with computers, similar to how most of the characters in "Pirates of the Caribbean" were transformed into sea monsters, including Davy Jones.

In the 1995 film "Batman Forever," Tommy Lee Jones simply had latex attached to his face that was shaped like a huge burn. It seems that "The Dark Knight" people are taking this a step further by making Two-Face have a bulging eye and visible teeth, with skin completely melted away in those areas. No make-up in the world could accomplish that.

Framestore CFC has some experience with effects, having worked on such films as "Troy," "Children of Men" and "Superman Returns."