The Dark Knight Turns 15
THE DARK KNIGHT was released 15 years ago today. Acclaimed as one of the greatest superhero movies and the film that cemented Christopher Nolan as the biggest event moviemaker of his generation, the making of story is a huge one…
A THREAD
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- All The Right Movies (@ATRightMovies) July 18, 2023
The Dark Knight was released 15 years ago today. Acclaimed as one of the greatest superhero movies and the film that cemented Christopher Nolan as the biggest event moviemaker of his generation, the making of story is a huge one…
- After the success of Batman Begins, Warner Bros were keen on Christopher Nolan directing a sequel. Two factors convinced him to return: he had never directed a sequel before, and he and Batman Begins writer David S Goyer, were keen to have The Joker as the villain.
- Nolan and Goyer spent 3 months fleshing out the plot with 'Escalation' as a key theme. Nolan brought his brother, Jonathan Nolan on board and over 6 months the two drafted the screenplay. Nolan pitched it to Warner Bros as "The Rise of The Joker".
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Bale trained in a fighting style called Keysi as Nolan wanted Batman to use real techniques. They looked at a range of different styles and decided Keysi was the one because it’s effective against multiple assailants, which suits Batman. (Clip from Batman Begins)…
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- Bale did some of his own stunts too. He tried riding the Batpod but could not stay on it. He did the stunt in Hong Kong, standing on a ledge 100 storeys up.
- Christopher Nolan's first choice for Gotham's D.A was Harvey 'Two Face' Dent was Matt Damon. Damon was interested but was unable to join due to scheduling conflicts.
- Ryan Phillippe, Hugh Jackman, and Mark Ruffallo were all considered for the role of Harvey Dent, but after Nolan saw him in Thank You For Smoking, Nolan asked Aaron Eckhard to audition - he won the role.
- Katie Holmes had starred as Rachel Dawes in Batman Begins but reportedly signed on for Mad Money instead of The Dark Knight. Nolan replaced her with Maggie Gyllenhaal, who said she treated the character as an entirely new person.
- After seeing him in Brokeback Mountain, Nolan wanted Heath Ledger as The Joker. Others expressed interest around the time of casting, including Paul Bettany, Adrien Brody, and Steve Carell. *Yes Steve Carell.*
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On Ledger being announced as The Joker, the internet went into meltdown and message boards across the globe full of fans voicing their complaint. Image from Reddit…
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- In preparation for the role, Heath Ledger hid away in a motel room for 6 weeks. During this time he developed the voice, the laugh, tics, the walk, and the make-up for the Joker. He also kept a diary which referenced 'A Clockwork Orange' and its protagonist Alex DeLarge.
- Heat (1995) was a huge influence for Nolan. It also stars William Fichtner, who plays the bank manager in the opening scene, and Anthony Michael Hall, as a news reporter. Both starred in Heat.
- Another major influence for the film was Batman #1 - the first Batman comic book. This is where The Joker's motivation is not money or power, he simply wants to cause public disorder. Nolan brought on Jerry Robinson - who co-created The Joker in 1940 - as a consultant for the film.
- Heath Ledger designed The Joker's make-up himself using cheap cosmetics from a drugstore. Once his design was approved by Nolan, the make-up team replicated the look each day for filming. In the film, you can see dried up make-up on The Joker's fingers after he's applied it.
- The scars around The Joker’s mouth were created as prosthetics and they kept coming unstuck. Ledger had to lick them back into place, and this is where The Joker’s tic comes from where he licks his lips.
- The costume designer was Lindy Hemming. Nolan told her he wanted to be able to imagine what The Joker smells like just by looking at him. She then based The Joker’s look on famous rock icons like Johnny Rotten, Iggy Pop and Pete Doherty.
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The Dark Knight was the first feature film to be shot using IMAX cameras. It caused some unforeseen problems. The cameras were large and noisy so sound would spill into the scene. At the time, there were few IMAX cameras in the world, and they broke one making the film.
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- The first 4 days of production involved no shooting. Nolan screened films to the cast and crew to get them in the right frame of mind. The films were: Heat, Cat People, Citizen Kane, King Kong, Batman Begins, Black Sunday, A Clockwork Orange and Stalag 17.
- During the opening scene, the robbers all wear clown masks, and the one The Joker wears is exactly the same one as worn by Cesar Romero, when The Joker makes his first ever appearance in the Batman TV series from the 1960s.
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Corbould tried to persuade Nolan to flip something smaller and Nolan agreed. They were going to do one of the SWAT vans but then Nolan came back a couple of days later and said “no, sorry, it has to be the 18-wheeler.”
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- Corbould’s team built a rig under the truck with a steel piston that would shoot out the bottom to make it flip. To get the piston to shoot out with enough force, they triggered it with TNT. They reinforced the cab with steel so the driver could stay in the truck.
- During filming the car chase sequence, the Chicago Police department received several phone calls from concerned civilians, telling them that the police were involved with a mysterious dark vehicle.
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Aaron Eckhart said that between takes, Ledger would walk around in character, mumbling to himself. After filming the scene below, Ledger grabbed Eckhart’s hand aggressively and said, “That’s what acting’s all about.”
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- Heath Ledger tragically passed away on 22nd January 2008 at just 28 years old, but his iconic performance won him a posthumous Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Ledger posthumously won a total of 32 acting awards for his work on the film, including the Golden Globe and BAFTA.
- Shortly before the movie came out on DVD, WB were taken to court by the mayor of Batman (Huseyin Kalkan), a city in Turkey. Even though it wasn’t used in the title, the name of Batman was considered an infringement. The lawsuit was dismissed.
- On a budget of £185 million, The Dark Knight took $1bn globally, and surpassed Batman Begins’ total after just 6 days. It set all manner of box office records and was the largest opening weekend ever at $158m.
- Christopher Nolan on Heath Ledger's Joker:
"When you get into the edit suite after shooting a movie, you feel a responsibility to an actor who has trusted you, and Heath gave us everything. As we started my cut, I would wonder about each take we chose, each trim we made. I would visualize the screening where we’d have to show him the finished film-sitting three or four rows behind him, watching the movements of his head for clues to what he was thinking about what we’d done with all that he’d given us. Now that screening will never be real. I see him every day in my edit suite. I study his face, his voice. And I miss him terribly."
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