Archive for December 9, 2011

The six-minute IMAX prologue to "The Dark Knight Rises" was screened for select Los Angeles press last night and while blow-by-blow descriptions are not allowed, very general descriptions have been. Here's a quick summary of what we can expect:

• • SPOILERS START * *

The film briefly starts with Jim Gordon giving the eulogy for Harvey Dent before shifting to an IMAX-filmed aerial action set piece - this one set somewhere in Central Asia.

It's there the CIA is making a deal with local militia to retrieve a missing Russian nuclear physicist. This leads to a massive heist-style action sequence onboard a private plane involving Tom Hardy's Bane character and acrobatics akin to the hallway scene in "Inception". It's also been revealed that "Game of Thrones" and "The Wire" star Aiden Gillen reportedly features in the sequence.

The footage ends with quick cut clips including Anne Hathaway in both Catwoman and Selina Kyle guises, Christian Bale, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the Batwing, a massive street brawl, and more of Hardy as Bane with the final shot of him in particular set to stun.

• • SPOILERS END * *

Comparisons have been made to both "Inception" and more pointedly to the classic opening sequences of the various pre-reboot James Bond films.

Reviews were high praise across the board with only one real complaint, albeit a common one - vocal clarity. Specifically Tom Hardy's voice was said to be near impossible to understand, and to a lesser extent so were some of the other voices. Of course the final sound mix probably isn't locked yet.

In other news from the screening it has been revealed that around 40-50 minutes of the final film will probably consist of IMAX shot-and-projected footage. In comparison "The Dark Knight" featured just over half that amount (25 minutes) while next week's "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol" consists of 30 minutes of IMAX footage.

Asked which bits, Nolan told EW that "Basically all the actions sequences, and some of the more large-scale other bits of the film that aren’t necessarily action. We even shot some dialogue scenes and some quite intimate dramatic scenes, which we haven’t done before. And so some of that will make its way into the film."

Nolan hasn't begun editing the rest of the film yet, this prologue was the first thing they've done. While the new trailer will be in regular theatres from December 16th, it will NOT be released officially online until sometime the following week. This means the first glimpse for many (especially fans outside major U.S. cities) will likely be via crappy quality Youtube bootlegs next weekend.

The studio however is giving North American and British viewers the chance to see it a few hours early. The official site has posted an audio recording of a woman reading of a list of co-ordinates which will allow people to attend an early screening of the TDKR prologue in major cities across the US, Canada and the UK on December 13th. Head to Operations Early Bird Map for the locales and to RSVP.

Fandango has conducted a poll amongst their user base for the most anticipated movies of next year, splitting the results by both gender and separating both remakes and films overall.

The results prove a tad surprising, especially the higher than expected placements of Baz Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby", Len Wiseman's "Total Recall" remake and Tarsem Singh's "Mirror Mirror":

THE MOST ANTICIPATED BLOCKBUSTER IN 2012:

According to Men:

1. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Warner Bros)
   
2. The Avengers (Marvel/Disney)
   
3. The Dark Knight Rises (Warner Bros)
   
4. The Bourne Legacy (Universal)
   
5. Men in Black III (Sony)
   

According to Women:

1. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 (Summit)
   
2. The Hunger Games (Lionsgate)
   
3. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Warner Bros)
   
4. Dark Shadows (Warner Bros)
   
5. The Avengers (Marvel/Disney)

THE MOST ANTICIPATED REMAKE IN 2012:

According to Men:

1. Total Recall (Sony)
   
2. The Amazing Spider-Man (Sony)
   
3. The Great Gatsby (Warner Bros)
   
4. Snow White And The Huntsman (Universal)
   
5. Mirror Mirror (Relativity)

According to Women:

1. Snow White And The Huntsman (Universal)
   
2. The Great Gatsby (Warner Bros)
   
3. Mirror Mirror (Relativity)
   
4. Total Recall (Sony)
   
5. The Amazing Spider-Man (Sony)