The Dark Knight Rises Will Be Set "Eight Years" After The Dark Knight
Posted 11.21.11 by Ryan
Production recently wrapped on director Christopher Nolan's third and final Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises , which is great news for fans anxious to see a new trailer or other footage from the shoot, but not so great news for those photographers that supplied the online community with a variety of "spy" pics and videos. Ultimately, the biggest take-away was that Batman (Christian Bale) and Bane (Tom Hardy) engage in a daytime fistfight, which was pretty much expected ever since Bane was revealed as the movie's villain. What else Nolan has in store is still a (mostly) well-kept secret, but the typically-guarded director has finally offered some new details.
In the most recent issue of Empire, which has both Bale and Hardy on alternating covers, Nolan opened up a bit about the plot of The Dark Knight Rises and revealed that the sequel will take place "eight years" after the previous installment.
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.
As for what the villain Nolan has in store for Batman, Hardy describes the adversary as "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.
A terrorist that requires a gas mask to survive, costume designer Lindy Hemming explained.
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.
To read more of the story, you'll have to pick up a copy of Empire, but for those that want to see some of the photos from the article, head over to SuperHeroHype who have photographed the images directly from the magazine.
Next Showing: The Dark Knight Rises opens July 20