When The Dark Knight Rises arrives in theaters next summer it will be four years since its predecessor hit, but with new information revealed today from Empire, the time-span between the two will be about double. Since our silent guardian and watchful protector rode off into the distance, Nolan states this third and final film in his trilogy is “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.”
And as for the person shaking his state, it will be none other than Tom Hardy as the villain Bane. We got a new glimpse of him yesterday with their cover reveals, but the site provides new quotes from the set. Check out what Hardy had to say about his violent character below.
“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.”
Hardy even states that he wasn’t thinking about what MPPA rating the film will receive. “I’m not a approaching it with a 12-certification attitude. If we’re going to shoot somebody, shoot the pregnant woman or the old lady first. Make sure everybody stands up. And listens.” As for that disfiguring mask, Ccostume designer Lindy Hemming said Bane “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 canisters.”
Pick up the latest issue of Empire to get more details, including Nolan discussing why he didn’t go with The Riddler for a villain and the six-to-seven minute prologue attached to Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. He states it will be the very beginning of the film, just like with the last film’s preview and it is meant for just a “taste” of what is to come. For now, check out some of the photos from the mag below via Coming Soon.
Update: Photos in hi-res via CBM below.
Starring Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Juno Temple, Josh Pence, Daniel Sunjata, Nestor Carbonell, Matthew Modine, Tom Conti, Joey King, Brett Cullen, Chris Ellis, Josh Stewart, Christopher Judge, Adam Rodriguez and Rob Brown, The Dark Knight Rises hits theaters July 20th, 2012.
What do you think about this new look at information?