Bring it on — Iron Man VS Batman!
August 13, 2008
First, there’s NYMag talking to Iron Man 2 screenwriter Justin Theroux:
Q. You’re writing Iron Man 2, right? Given the success of The Dark Knight, are you tempted to make it darker than the original?
A. There’s no temptation whatsoever. You know, I tremulously went and watched The Dark Knight myself, but it’s a totally different movie, like, you know that Tom Cruise movie where he played the race-car driver? What was that movie called … anyway. It’s like comparing that movie to Talladega Nights — it’s two totally different animals. We have a leading man who can sort of relish being a cad, and that’s a fun character to write for. We feel like we’re in the clear.
Then, Robert Downey Jr. spoke to Moviebutthole or something:
“Now Justin Theraux who wrote ‘Tropic Thunder’, is writing it and Jon and I are working on the story with him. It’s pretty great and I think it’s going to be cool. I think it’s going to appropriately well thought out so that we don’t forget what got us the response that we appreciated so much, which is, we didn’t say, ‘Great, now that this is like this, now we’re going to twist it and do this with it.’ It’s now; I’m not saying we’re going to do bits. I think more of the same; it is a very rich feel, because it was a very simple movie, if you ask me. It was an origin story.”
Which apparently was not the case with the other big summer movie “The Dark Knight”. “My whole thing is that that I saw ‘The Dark Knight’. I feel like I’m dumb because I feel like I don’t get how many things that are so smart. It’s like a Ferrari engine of storytelling and script writing and I’m like, ‘That’s not my idea of what I want to see in a movie.’ I loved ‘The Prestige’ but didn’t understand ‘The Dark Knight’. Didn’t get it, still can’t tell you what happened in the movie, what happened to the character and in the end they need him to be a bad guy. I’m like, ‘I get it. This is so high brow and so f–king smart, I clearly need a college education to understand this movie.’ You know what? F-ck DC comics. That’s all I have to say and that’s where I’m really coming from.”
Well clearly Downey isn’t about to do anything for DC Comics anytime soon. “You know, you’re never too old to burn your bridges because I believe I have offended everyone,” he says, laughingly. “I think I’ve got a couple more. ‘I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it’ is my favourite phrase I’ve ever coined.”
Joss Whedon Talks About His ‘Batman’ Movie That Never Was
August 12, 2008
Well, I actually did pitch a ‘Batman’ film when [Warner Bros. began developing "Batman Begins"], and it wasn’t what they did but the vibe was very similar,” said Whedon. “Mine was a bit less epic. It was more about the progression of him and it was more in Gotham City. He didn’t go to Tibet and meet cool people, but it was very similar in vibe [to Nolan's "Batman Begins"].”
After a little prodding, Whedon opened up a bit about his “Batman” idea, even going into detail about what villain he planned on using…or not using.
“In my version, there was actually a new [villain], it wasn’t one of the classics — which is probably why they didn’t use it,” he laughed. “It was more of a ‘Hannibal Lector’ type — he was somebody already in Arkham Asylum that Bruce went and sort of studied with. It was a whole thing — I get very emotional about it, I still love the story. Maybe I’ll get to do it as a comic one day.”
- from MTV
Batman won’t catch “Titanic”
August 12, 2008
Will “Titanic” ever lose its berth as the biggest movie of all time? “The Dark Knight” is racing up the ranks, but the Batman sequel will stall at No. 2 with about $510 million to $520 million, Warner Bros. Pictures predicts.
That’s far from the $601 million haul of “Titanic,” which set sail in December 1997. (Adjusted for inflation, both movies are dwarfed by the $1.4 billion haul for 1939’s “Gone with the Wind”).
The buoyancy of “Titanic” is traceable to teenage girls from Toledo to Tokyo to Timbuktu. They lined up over and over again to shed tears for Leonardo DiCaprio’s heroic character, and helped writer/director James Cameron’s maritime epic make $1.8 billion worldwide.
Fast-forward 10-plus years, and “The Dark Knight” has soared to an incredible $441.6 million domestically and $263.5 million internationally through just its first four weekends. In crushing a multitude of speed records, the superhero saga has stoked speculation that the “Titanic” record will finally run into an iceberg.
Yet the theatrical waters have changed dramatically during the past decade thanks to the rise of the megaplex — allowing double- and triple-screen showings of films in single venues — and the onset of supersaturation releasing in 4,000 or more theaters.
“Dark Knight” and other major releases now ring up mind-bending sums over their first couple weekends, with “Dark Knight” grossing a record $313.8 million domestically through its first 10 days. That makes it something of an apples-and-oranges comparison in trying to project whether the appetite for a contemporary release will match the historic performance of an older film deep into a theatrical run.
In any event, such an analysis soon could be rendered moot. For there’s one simple reason the box office party likely will end sooner rather than later for “Dark Knight,” and it’s spelled D-V-D.
- from Reuters
Angelina Jolie is NOT Catwoman in Batman 3, it’s Maggie Gyllenhaal
August 2, 2008
There’s been some bullshit rumors going around started by NY Daily News and frickin’ Julie Newmar that Angelina Jolie should play the role of Catwoman. Right, Julie Newmar has the pulse on Christopher Nolan’s vision of Batman. Suddenly, this dumb article became fact, and people are reporting that Mrs. Brad Pitt IS Catwoman in Batman 3. No and no. We know who’s Catwoman. It’s Maggie Gyllenhaal… Read more
Who Said It: Bush or Batman?
July 25, 2008
Batman beats Spider-Man
July 20, 2008
The new Batman movie “The Dark Knight” smashed the weekend record set by “Spider-Man 3″ last year, selling an estimated $155.3 million worth of tickets during its first three days of release across the United States and Canada, distributor Warner Bros. Pictures said on Sunday. The hotly anticipated film, co-starring late actor Heath Ledger as the anarchic Joker, surpassed the $151.1 million haul for “Spider-Man 3″ during its first weekend in May 2007. Read more
Batman breaks box office bank
July 20, 2008
From Variety:
Warner Bros.’ Batman sequel “The Dark Knight” became box office legend as it opened to an estimated $155.4 million from 4,366 theaters, the highest opening ever for a three-day weekend.
“Dark Knight,” from filmmaker Christopher Nolan and returning Christian Bale as the caped crusader, shot past the previous record-holder, “Spider-Man 3,” which earned $151.1 million in its debut in May 2007. Batman–after multiple stops-and-starts, is now the most successful superhero ever to hit the bigscreen. Legendary Pictures co-financed and co-produced “Dark Knight.”
Universal female-skewing musical “Mamma Mia!” was no wallflower either, grossing an estimated $27.6 million from 2,976 runs in its debut to snatch the best opening for a musical in narrowly beating out the $27.5 million opening of musical “Hairspray” on the same weekend last year.
“Dark Knight,” along with “Mamma Mia” and several stalwart holdovers, delivered the film business its best weekend ever for a non-holiday, with total box office receipts of roughly $250 million. Frame’s performance stunned Hollywood
No Country for Batman
July 20, 2008
From Huffpost:
It would be hard for a movie to enter theaters with more buzz to live up to than The Dark Knight. Critical raves were near-unanimous, crystallizing around praise for the haunted last performance of Heath Ledger, which more than a few whispered was so unsettlingly brilliant that it may have driven him over the edge. All this for a summer blow-em-up blockbuster? How could it satisfy the hype?
As it turns out, it’s closer to the bleak Westerns that cleaned up at the Oscars this winter than to the candy-colored creampuffs that we’re used to seeing in July, a bleak cry of despair cloaked in the garb of a comic book action movie, No Country For Old Men with a Batmobile.
The movie starts out innocently enough, with a violently funny Joker-led bank heist, in which each of the Joker’s henchman shoots the next one in turn in order to get a better share of the loot, with the Joker pulling the final trigger. From there the film cuts to Batman (Christian Bale), picking up where the last film left off, successfully thwarting the Scarecrow. But the clash between good and evil quickly gives way to destruction and collateral damage, as Ledger’s Joker casts his violence as a proof of the basic amorality of humanity, each death a random choice, with each collateral casualty yet more evidence that he’s right.
Batman, I mean Christian Bale VS a Terminator Photo! (He won’t be back)
July 18, 2008
Early review of The Dark Knight, Big Thumbs Up
June 25, 2008
Batman has inspired the city officials particularly Harvey Dent. The
DA for Gotham city. This is really his story. The rise and fall of the
white knight. He is Bruce Wayne’s hope for Gotham City. A hero who
doesn’t have to wear a mask. A man who can inspire hope in the masses.
If BB was about fear then TDK is about hope and is relevant in today’s
times. Harvey Dent is a good honest man who is willing to bear the
weight of bringing down all the criminals on his shoulders and what
that means for his own life and those he loves. In terms of his
transition to Two Face all I will say is that everything online that
Ive seen is fake. The moment we first see him in hospital when Harvey
Dent asks Gordan what his nickname used to be in Internal Affairs and
Gordan says Harvey Two Face and Harvey turns to him . Such a clever
way of establishing the character. Even down to his double sided coin.
Lets just say Aaron Eckhart puts Tommy Lee Jones to friggin shame!
The film feels more like a crime drama in a grand city scape than a
typical comic book movie. It feels like Heat except Batman is Al
Pacino and The Joker is Robert De Niro and just like in that film we
have a great scene between Heath Ledger and Christian Bale across a
table. There is also an element of a Greek Tragedy.. There is a vast
sense of morality at play within the film.
- from AICN
New Heath Ledge Joker Poster for The Dark Knight
May 18, 2008
yeah its big, but bigger is better, you bitches.
Update: The first look at Two-Face! Aaron Eckhart is not just another pretty face
May 4, 2008
There were plenty of name actors lined up hoping to get the role of Two-Face, but in the end Nolan went with Eckhart because of his “complexity and this aura he has of a good man pushed too far,” Nolan said. Two-Face in the film is more of a vigilante hunting down the Joker than he is a criminal, as he has most often been portrayed in the comics. His trademark is flipping a two-headed coin, one side defaced, the other pristine, and letting its landing determine his actions, often in situations where he has a gun to someone’s head.
“The difference between Batman and Two-Face is how far they are willing to go and how they make their point,” Eckhart said. “Otherwise, we’re talking about vigilante crime-fighting. That’s what Batman is all about. He has a strong sense of justice. And Harvey Dent has an extremely strong sense of justice. His fiancée is killed. He’s horribly injured. But he is still true to himself. He’s a crime fighter, he’s not killing good people. He’s not a bad guy, not purely.”
The 40-year-old, square-jawed Eckhart has a history of playing authority figures pulled away from the bright path. He was a cop on a path to destruction in “The Black Dahlia,” the slick tobacco lobbyist in “Thank You for Smoking,” the junior executive looking to punish women in Neil LaBute’s “In the Company of Men,” all of them roles in which bad deeds are simple to see but bad men are hard to recognize.
“You look at a good guy too long and it’s not that exciting, it’s the Boy Scout always doing the right thing,” Eckhart said. “I’m interested in good guys gone wrong. They’re not the bad guy, they’re the good guy doing bad things.”
– From LAtimes
Update: Here’s the first look at Aaron’s Two-Face from the new Dark Knight Trailer:
New killer Dark Knight Trailer
May 4, 2008
As we said, Heath Ledger’s death scene in The Dark Knight will remain intact
April 16, 2008
Early screenings of The Dark Knight left some film fans reeling after they saw footage of Ledger, as The Joker, hiding out in a bodybag. That prompted internet speculation about whether studio heads would cut the scene to avoid upsetting sensitive Ledger fans. But a source close to the production tells website MovieHole.net, “The film remains intact - and nothing of Ledger’s will be cut from the movie, including the bodybag scene.”
The source adds, “I know for a fact that that scene is in the film. I also know that WB has made no such mandate and that (director) Chris Nolan is honest when saying that he will not change what was intended with The Joker.”
via here
Dead Heath Ledger steals spotlight as The Joker
April 14, 2008
Chilling promotional images of Ledger portraying the Joker from the upcoming Batman movie, The Dark Knight, have been released - nearly three months after the Perth-born actor was found dead in New York.
In one scene from the film, Ledger is dressed in a white nurse’s uniform, wielding a gun and wearing a surgical mask. In another, his face painted with the Joker’s trademark evil grin in red, he points a gun directly at the camera.
These are just two of the many images film company Warner Bros is using to promote The Dark Knight, to be released in Australia on July 17. From the movie’s promotional material to the trailer, Ledger appears to be the main attraction, with Christian Bale, who plays Batman, taking a back seat.
Via DailyT
Heath’s Joker in a bodybag scene being cut? Bullshit.
April 10, 2008
he scene involves Ledger’s Joker character pretending to be dead and being pictured in a body bag. Apparently the aftershocks of Ledger’s unfortunate death are such that many in the screening reacted rather badly to this moment and now execs are considering excising the scene altogether.
Via Cinemablend
Rachel Dawes Believes in Harvey Dent
April 7, 2008
Christian Bale talks Batman and Heath Ledger
March 22, 2008
Of course there will be a Batman 3
March 17, 2008
Q. So do you think there will be a part 3 of Batman?
A. Um, look, let’s wait and see…
Q. Or, I guess it’d be part 7.
A. No, no, no, no, no. [Smiling] Part 3 is what I’d consider it, yeah, I don’t say part 7. Batman begins — that was the beginning there, with all due respect to the others. We are re-creating this. You know, obviously the decision is out of my hands. I would, knowing the Dark Knight story, I would like very much to complete a trilogy. And I think that knowing the story of The Dark Knight, it leaves you anticipating something that really can get very, very interesting for a third. Now, the question would be: Is Chris going to be doing it? Because to me I find it tricky to imagine working on it without it being a collaboration with Chris.
Via EW
Warners talks ‘Speed,’ ‘Knight’
March 14, 2008
Warner Bros. unleashed candy-colored, neon-bright footage from a supercharged “Speed Racer,” promised an epic crime story in its latest Batman movie, “The Dark Knight,” and welcomed George Lucas back to the studio after a nearly 40-year absence as it previewed its summer line-up at ShoWest on Thursday. Producer Joel Silver was drafted to introduce a fast-paced four minutes and 10 seconds from “Speed Racer,” the Wachowski Brothers’ big-screen adaptation of the TV toon set for a May 9 release. Christopher Nolan took on the task of speaking on behalf of “The Dark Knight,” which, he said, would continue “the epic tale” begun in his “Batman Begins” by telling “a really epic crime story” when it is released July 18.
Via HR
Harvey Dent campaign site goes live
March 10, 2008
ibelieveinharveydent.com, one of the viral sites for Batman: The Dark Knight, is now fully functional. The site serves as the hub for the fictional campaign of Harvey Dent for Gotham City district attorney, complete with poster downloads, and a call for videos and photos of people supporting the candidate.
Batman’s Burden: A Director Confronts Darkness and Death
March 8, 2008
Christopher Nolan, the director of “The Dark Knight” — the follow-up to his 2005 franchise reboot, “Batman Begins” — is unperturbed by the rain, but a tiny detail irks him. “Hey, buster!” he shouts to the stuntman, craning his neck skyward and raising his voice for the first time all day (politely, as ever, but enough so he can be heard). “Could you turn yourself a little more to the left?”
Via NYTimes
How did Aaron Eckhart become such a Two Face?
March 7, 2008
Forget Tommy Lee Jones’s one-note butchering of the character in Batman Forever, Christopher Nolan is experimenting with a fascinatingly schizophrenic depiction of Two-Face that will blend sane and insane line readings from Eckhart. Basically, Nolan shot complementary takes of Eckhart in Two-Face makeup so he could visually represent the duality of Dent in a less cartoony fashion. What Nolan’s doing doesn’t sound all that far removed from the Gollum/Smeagol model, though the obvious difference here is that Dent isn’t motion-capture; he’s a fifty-fifty split of the same actor giving two wildly divergent performances in the same shot. And because he has two takes of each scene, Nolan has the luxury of shaping Eckhart’s performance in post; it’s just a matter of switching the dial between normal Harvey and bug-fuck Two-Face. Again, both will be present in the shot, but only one will dominate the poor bastard’s conflicted consciousness at any given moment. The technical audacity required in pulling this off may be the reason Two-Face was held back in the trailer.
Via Chud
Aaron Eckhart is such a Two Face
March 7, 2008
I have done scenes as Harvey Two-Face. It’s interesting. I won’t tell you exactly what we’re going for, but I think that I can say that it will use all of today’s technology to create this character. He’s going to be interesting, and I think that’s what makes this character important in the movie—you get to see him as he was before, as in the comic books. Harvey is a very good guy in the comic books. He’s judicious. He cares. He’s passionate about what he loves and then he turns into this character. So you will see that in this film.
Via Wizard
We Believe In Harvey Dent
February 29, 2008
