You might've seen the new Empire covers with Batman and Bane (
http://collider.com/dark-knight-rise...n-bane/127522/), but here's a sneak peek at some of the news on The Dark Knight Rises inside the magazine.
Specifically, Nolan himself gives away a few tidbits on the film's plot and setting, and Tom Hardy talks about Bane. According to Christopher Nolan himself, The Dark Knight Rises doesn't pick up where The Dark Knight left off, with Batman on the run and Commissioner Gordon rebuilding Gotham; it takes place eight years later.
Let's hear from director Christopher Nolan first, and see what he'll divulge about the film. "
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."
You've got to love how Nolan understates how important this information is, claiming it is "perhaps surprising" that the movie takes place after an eight-year jump. In all the rampant speculation about The Dark Knight Rises that started pretty much the moment the last film came to theaters, I don't think many people ever really considered that the sequel would jump ahead so far in time. The leap does help take care of a number of narrative problems, though, from the fact that Batman on the run and in hiding wouldn't have made for much of a movie to simply eliminating Heath Ledger's The Joker from the story-- he was left alive and dangling from a building in The Dark Knight, but with eight years gone by there won't really be any reason for the citizens of Gotham to wonder where the crazy painted man went.
Speaking of physical challenges, what can Tom Hardy tell us about Bane? "He's brutal. 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."
Costume designer Lindy Hemming also lets drop a few clues to his backstory as she talks about Bane's look. On the mask, she says, "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."
For much, much more from all these people - as well as Christian Bale - pick up the new issue of Empire when it hits newsstands on Thursday.
The Dark Knight Rises is out in cinemas on July 20, 2012.
Its prologue, Nolan has confirmed, will be in select IMAX cinemas on December 21. As with The Dark Knight, it will be - according to Nolan - "basically the first six, seven minutes of the film" and will serve as "an introduction to Bane, and a taste of the rest of the film."
Mouth. Watering.
What is this eight-year jump going to mean for the movie? How will The Bat have changed? And how are we expected to wait until next summer to find out all these answers?