The Dark Knight Movie Thread

[Tang Lung]

Whats going on with shot 13 in that gallery?

EDIT: Haha, didn't realise it was a production photo...doh

[axion]

Could also be maybe some Batman impersonators?

[Joel]

The joker is definitely living up to the promise that Nolan and Ledger made in that the character will be dark and sadistic. I think this is in order since a re-make of Nicholson's Joker would simply come off second best. Let Nicholson's Joker be, the DVD's are there if you want to reminisce. But I have to agree in that this is very different to what i've ever seen, possibly even darker than what the comics portray. It definitely is a risk though. It's something that will either wow audiences or fall flat on its face, I can't imagine the character receiving a middle ground response somehow.

[dan2091]

So I don't get it.. are all those pics from The Dark Knight film? I can see the batsuit from BBegins in some photos.. can someone explain that?

[Kalki]

Referring to pics like this? Good catch.

It's possible he changes suits mid-movie.

[sawn_off]

1.> Why are there two Batmen?

2.> Why does one of them have a rifle?

[Kalki]

Stunt doubles or impersonators, take your pick.

[Paroxysm]

crazy people getting their vigilantism and batman fanboyism on

[thefly]

a robot

[Nexus_sa]

Audio teaser trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809271891/video/3870382/

[Damien_Azreal]

Originally Posted by sawn_off

1.> Why are there two Batmen?

2.> Why does one of them have a rifle?

Judging from the look of the one with the rifle, most likely the Joker's thugs impersonating the Batman.
Trying to give him a negative image.

In one pic you see guys sitting around, and about five different Batmen... but the suits look cheap, throw together and fake.

Also, that teaser has been poster before.

[Phait]

From http://media.movies.ign.com/media/75...g_5026090.html

[FullMetalJacket]

Very cool.

[Ecmaster76]

I recently rewatched Batman Begins and enjoyed as much or more as the first time. Im definitely looking forward to this one.

I hope that the suit change is mid movie. The first one made a big point of showing him crafting his gear so I think that would work well.

[Joe Siegler]

http://www.empireonline.com/heiscoming/

[Kalki]

That promo is odd. We seen on-set pics of the Joker so they've already tipped their hand.

[Joe Siegler]

Keep in mind, the overwhelming majority of folks don't read all the spoiler sites online.

[abnormal]

Im so excited!

[Joe Siegler]

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=39622

[Kalki]

Originally Posted by Joe Siegler

Keep in mind, the overwhelming majority of folks don't read all the spoiler sites online.

You have a point there.

And this is a new pic. I'm digging his clothes.

[ryche]

I've been following the viral crap since I've been out here and it's pretty sweet they're doing such stuff. That new pic of the Joker is just awesome I think. Can't wait for this movie

Hey Kalki - You diggin the socks?

[Kalki]

Sure, why not

[ryche]

Everyone at the SSH boards wants them socks lol

[abnormal]

[abnormal]

And the article from upcoming empire magazine.

Fear Has a Face

In a vacant office block on the west side of LaSalle Street in downtown Chicago - temporary production base of a movie that our press pass insists is called Rory's First Kiss, but everyone knows is really The Dark Knight - Empire is shown into a high-ceilinged, wood paneled room, the kind of place you;d imagine very important decisions were once taken by powerful, polyester-clad men back in the 1970's. we've ostensibly been invited here to observe director Christopher Nolan at work in the street outside and the building opposite via a live feed to a flatscreen TV, but the producers have arranged something else, too.

In a small, windowless side-room stand a pair of costumes. In one corner, hanging from a sturdy, metal frame, is the new-look Batsuit, all matte-black mesh and unyielding hard-plastic carapace, the first to allow the moody crime-fighter to actually turn his head. Impressive, But in the corner to it's left, draped simply over a headless mannequin, is something far more exciting. It's a tatty, threadbare get-up, a dark green waistcoat over a grey shirt, with a dark-green tie at the collar. Purple trousers hand below and a long, angular purple coat sits on top. The ensemble's completed by a pair of purple gloves and a silver fob chain dangling from the belt. It's part Vivienne Westwood, part Alexander McQueen, part thrift-shop grunge. And it's entirely The Joker.

Well of course, not literally entirely. Later, Heath Ledger, the man who fills the suit onscreen, joins Empire - sadly sans his ravaged, psycho-clown make-up. Ledger's ill-at-ease body language and propensity to mumble suggest a nervousness you might expect from someone tackling such an iconic role. But everybody else Empire's talked with that day, from Nolan himself to Michael Caine, who returns as Bruce Wayne's sardonic butler Alfred, describes Ledger as "fearless".

"Oh, I definitely feared it," Ledger tells Empire quietly, with a half-apologetic smile. "Although anything that makes me afraid I guess ecites me at the same time. I don't know if I was fearless, but i certainly had to put on a brave face and believe that I have something up my sleeve. Something different..."

Christopher Nolan made it quite clear after he'd completed Batman Begin that he had no intention of making a sequel. But then, while shooting his next movie, The Prestige, something surprising happened: Nolan found himself replaying Batman Begins' final dialogue exchange in his head, the moment when good copper (my note: that's British talk for a policeman) Jim Gordon (Garay Oldman) talks of a criminal with "a taste for the theatrics" and hands Batman (Christian Bale) a playing card adorned with the smile-snarl face of a Joker. And Nolan found himself wanting to make a sequel, if only to see the Joker done his way.

"The way Batman Begins ended was intended not so much as sequel bait," Nolan insists, "but to create a level of excitement at the end of the movie. Ultimately, the sequel happened because we got caught up in that process of imagining how you would see the Joker go through the prism of what we did in the first film."

And how is the Joker seen through that prism? "Indescribable, really, Not to sound evasive - it actually is quite difficult to explain, but all I can really say is Heath's not doing any particular thing, he's inhabiting the character in very much the way I'd hoped from a psychological perspective. He really created something that I think is going to be quite terrifying."

Throughout Empire's time noodling about on The Dark Knight's set, nobody seems confident enough to say precisely how The Joker will be portrayed on film. A 'prologue' sequence revealing something of the mysterious villain's origin (various versions of which have been presented over the years in the comic books) will be screened ahead of I Am Legend on its US release this month, and is likely to appear in the UK, too, come the latter film's January release. Even so, Ledger himself quips that, "I feel like I'll be assassinated if I tell you something wrong," so when asked how much we'll see in the film of the man who becomes The Joker, he merely says that, "Most of the villains in the Chris Nolan style of Batman films are normal people or once were normal people."

Still, Ledger's more happy to talk about how he became The Joker - and we're not just talking about an hour in make-up, "It's a combination of reading all the comic books I could that were relevant to the script and then just closing my eyes and meditating on it. i sat around in a hotel room in London for about a month, locked myself away, formed a little diary and experimented with voices - it was important to try to find a somewhat iconic voice and laugh. I ended up landing more in the realm of a psychopath - someone with very little to no conscience towards his acts. he's just an absolute sociopath, a cold-blooded, mass murdering clown, and Chris has given me free rein. Which is fun, because there are no real boundaries to what the Joker would say or do. Nothing intimidates him, and everything is a big joke."

"I think we all have that in us," Ledger muses, before attempting to describe the physicality of inhabiting his and Nolan's vision of The Joker: "It's kind of like eating raw meat. What that does to your mouth and your eyes, simple little visual things like that. I don't know - I guess the rest is just trusting your research."

There is a very specific reason, though, why Ledger - who's never played a villain before - is considered a brave man to tackle this role. And, as with many things, nobody expresses that reason better than Michael Caine.

"If I put myself in a producer's shoes, I think: 'Wait a minute, we are making a movie about The Joker," the 74 year-old actor ruminates. "Now, we have had Jack Nicholson, who is one of the greatest Jokers and one of the greatest characters in this kind of movie. I have worked with Jack and I know him really well. You do not want to follow Jack into anything. Unless it's a nightclub."

For his part, Nolan has no reservations about 'following' Jack (somewhere other than a nightclub). "None at all, to be honest," he says, "And that was very important to us in deciding to make this film. I certainly knew that story-wise the character was going to be very different, and it was always going to require a fearless performance from someone not afraid to put forward his own interpretation."

"Heath Ledger stunned me," continues Caine. "Jack played the clown as sort of a benign nasty clown - like a wicked uncle. Heath plays him like an absolutely maniacal murderous psychopath. You have never seen anything like it in your life. He is very, very scary. i turn up every few months or so and do a couple of bits, then go back to London. i had to do this bit where Batman and I watch a video which The Joker sends to threaten us. So I'd never seen him, and then he came on the television in the first rehearsal and I completely forgot my lines. I flipped, because it was so stunning, it was quite amazing. Wait until you see it, it's incredible."

Fans of the comic book will realise that what we'll be seeing here is a version more of the original Joker - the pure, cold hearted sociopath version - and the recent portrayals. of him as a deeply insane man. Not the Clown Prince of Crime, the rather more harmless prankster-bank-robber of the 60's, the Cesar Rmoero version if you like, which the Jack-Joker ran with for Burton's Batman.

Indeed, the ratty costume which Empire was introduced to right at the beginning of out day provides some key clues to the contrast between Ledger's Joker and Nicholson's. "He's certainly not a dapper, dandy gentleman in this film," says costume designer Lindy Hemming, "Whatever is wrong with him, it means he doesn't care about himself at all, really. We were trying to make him sort of a... I don't want to say vagrant, but his look in this film has a much punkier feel. Anarchic feel. Scruffier, grungier, and therefore when you see him move, he's slightly twitchier or edgy." He doesn't even have 'clown' make-up, as such. "He's just somebody who exaggerates the scar on his mouth." adds Hemming.

"What the director has done," says Caine, "which is so clever, is that the Joker has left the make-up and just let it rot off. it is never renewed. He's got a big, wide mouth and it gradually almost looks like bad skin disease."

An antagonist is nothing without his protagonist, of course, and we should never forget that we wouldn't have The Joker if it weren't for Batman. Still, with Nicholson stealing Burton's movie away from the frowning Michael Keaton, you could forgive Christian Bale for worrying that Ledger would do the same to him.

"I'm not worried at all," says Bale. "That was exactly the problem I had with the other movies - after I had read Frank Miller's Batman: Year One and various other graphic novels, I looked at those films and said, 'Well how comes it's always been that Batman's the most boring character?' I've never found him to be intriguing at all. Whereas these graphic novels depicted him as really being by far the most fascinating character. So I feel like we gained that back with Batman Begins. Now we've made him a character of substance. I have no problem with him competing with someone else. And that's going to make better entertainment and a better movie, which is great."

Bale grin's "I don't mind if everybody tried to chew up the scenery!"

[hellchicken]

Thank you abnormal!

I had to lol at this part:

"If I put myself in a producer's shoes, I think: 'Wait a minute, we are making a movie about The Joker," the 74 year-old actor ruminates. "Now, we have had Jack Nicholson, who is one of the greatest Jokers and one of the greatest characters in this kind of movie. I have worked with Jack and I know him really well. You do not want to follow Jack into anything. Unless it's a nightclub."

[abnormal]

Originally Posted by hellchicken

Thank you abnormal!

I had to lol at this part:

yes, I chuckled aswell.

[Kalki]

I liked Caine's reaction to the threatening video.

And the descriptions of taking the character out of the dandy mold is in line with what I've been expecting. We may not see the clean-look Joker with vivid colors as on the Empire magazine cover. I find myself wishing this movie were worthy of an R-rating.

Watched this earlier: http://www.imax.com/ImaxWeb/xtras/?d...dk/dk_prologue

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

I was hoping the entire film would be in Imax, but it seems only the action sequences are. : (

Oh well.

[ryche]

I think the Joker looks great though..good interpretation.

[ryche]

I'm so stoked to see this movie

[abnormal]

New pictures alert!

[ryche]

Man...I can't wait.

[hellchicken]

The first six minutes from The Dark Knight spoiled. This is the introduction of the Joker in the movie. Read below at your own risk (you know you want to ).

Spoiler:

show spoiler

It starts off with a breathtaking shot of Gotham City in broad daylight. The camera swoops into this big glass skyscraper the way only an IMAX movie can. It was stunning. Then BOOM! One of the windows in this big glass skyscraper is blown out. It then cut to two thugs in ugly clown masks (the ones we saw in the first publicity stills that were released months ago) shooting a zip line down to an adjacent rooftop.

Cut to the street as we see another thug waiting on a street corner with his clown mask in his hand. We’re looking at him from behind and can’t see his face. A van pulls up and the thug puts on his mask and jumps in to join the rest of the clowns. The clown who’s driving is bitching about how this Joker guy who planned the heist didn’t even bother to show up and questions why they should cut him in on any of the loot. There’s an awesome line from one of the clowns about The Joker and how he wears make-up as “war paint” to scare the crap out of people. Very cool stuff.

The two clowns in the skyscraper dramatically swing down to the rooftop while the clowns in the van enter the bank guns a blazing.

One of the rooftop clowns disables the silent alarm and comments that the alarm isn’t going to the cops. Once the alarm is halted, his partner shoots him dead.

Cut to William Fichtner (the actor).

Fichtner [plays] the bank manager and he looks pissed.

Then cut to two clowns cracking the safe. Once the one clown gets the safe door open, his partner shoots him dead. We start to see a pattern here. The remaining clown starts to fill the gym bags with cash.

As the clowns in the bank lobby control the crowd, Fichtner goes to work. The bank manager pulls out a shotgun and starts hunting clowns. It was unexpected and super-freakin-awesome. Crazy-ass Fichtner is enraged and ranting on about how these clowns have no idea who they are messing with. You learn that much like the rest of Gotham City this bank is corrupt and run by the mob. Nice twist. Of course the silent alarm doesn’t go to the cops.

Too bad Fichtner runs out of shells and the remaining clowns shoot his angry ass. He’s down, but not dead.

Then the clowns start to argue with each other. One clown asks the other, “So, I guess the Joker told you to shoot me once we had the money?”

The other clown tells him, “No, I’m supposed to shoot the bus driver.”

“Bus driver?” WHAM! A school bus crashes through the front of the bank, running over the first clown.

The back of the bus opens and the bus driver clown jumps out and helps load up the loot. Then bus driver clown gets capped. One clown left.

Fichtner bank manager then mutters something about there once being honor in the underworld of Gotham and this gets the clown’s attention. The clown shoves a grenade in Fichtner’s mouth with a string attached to the pin. The clown takes off his mask and we get an 80-foot IMAX Heath Ledger Joker face telling us “whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stranger.” It’s chill inducing. People are going to lose their minds.

The Joker jumps into the school bus, closes the back door on the string, and drives off. The pin on the grenade is pulled as the bus pulls away. Instead of an explosion, pink gas is released. The school bus pulls into the street and joins a convoy of school buses loaded with children. The Joker escapes into Gotham City.

The whole spoiler was taken from this URL: http://movieblog.ugo.com/index.php/m...n_imax_in_nyc/ .

[ryche]

Smile

HAhahahHAHAhahAHHahahahahHAhAHa

[Damien_Azreal]

That was an awesome read hellchicken. An while it may be a spoiler in ways, I'm willing to bet reading it is no where near as awesome as watching it on screen. So, I don't consider it a spoiler here.

I can't wait to see this film.

[abnormal]

[Kalki]

Originally Posted by ryche

Man...I can't wait.

What he said.

[ryche]

I'm going to watch Begins again tonight just cause I'm excited to see this...even though it's months away

[abnormal]