Batman : The Dark Knight Blog

Archive for December, 2008

Zack Snyder is interested in bringing Frank Miller’s comic book “The Dark Knight Returns” to the big screen.

Snyder, who previously directed a film adaptation of Miller’s graphic novel “300,” told iFMagazine he has already approached studio Warner Bros. about the project.

The story, which the director says is his favourite comic book, follows an ageing Bruce Wayne who comes out of retirement to once again defend Gotham City.

Snyder added that it is unlikely he would be able to make the movie because of potential conflict with Warner Bros.’s highly successful Batman franchise starring Christian Bale.

“The studio has this massive franchise and I don’t think they’ll let me make a Batman movie where he’s 50 years old and Ronald Reagan is President,” he said.

Snyder also helmed the 2004 remake of “Dawn of the Dead” and the comic-based movie “Watchmen,” which hits theatres March 6.

While the British writer who reported that Eddie Murphy would play The Riddler is sticking by his story, Murphy himself has now denied the casting rumor — or rather, one of his representatives has denied it on his behalf.

According to Access Hollywood, a representative of Murphy has categorized the rumors as “not true.”

So, where does that leave us in the “Batman 3” rumor mess?

The initial British report that cast Murphy in the role also attached Shia LaBeouf as Bat-sidekick Robin, and Rachel Weisz in the role of Catwoman. Neither star has issued a statement regarding the rumors, and while we’re inclined to doubt the former (LaBeouf as Robin) and be cautiously skeptical about the latter (Weisz as Catwoman), there’s still that pesky lack of any confirmation whatsoever from Warner Bros or director Christopher Nolan that there will even be a “Dark Knight” sequel.

But we’re keeping hope alive, aren’t we?

Keep your eyes on Splash Page for more information as “Batman 3″ news develops.

How do you feel about Eddie Murphy’s announcement? What does your ideal “Dark Knight” sequel look like? Let us know in the comment section!

Source

Eartha Kitt, the Emmy-award winning actress, singer, and dancer has died of colon cancer in Connecticut at the age of 81.

Kitt, best known for playing Catwoman in the 1960s “Batman” television series, died at 2:15pm local time with her daughter and only child Kitt Shapiro by her side.

During a career that spanned more than six decades, Kitt performed in over 100 countries, received two Emmy awards, and appeared in a number of films.

Early in her career Kitt found an admirer in Orson Welles who called her “the most exciting woman in the world” and cast her as Helen of Troy in his “Dr. Faust” production.

She won Emmy awards in 2007 and 2008 for her role in the Saturday morning animated series “The Emperor’s New School.”

As a recording artist, Kitt may be best known for “Santa Baby.” She received a Grammy nomination for “Folk Tales of the Tribes of Africa.”

Source

That was The Dark Knight before Christmas, the Narrator spat
Not a creature was stirring, not even a bat…

A surfer inform me about the joker blog any info about this blog are welcome! is this real viral marketing or just a fan made blog?

Heath Ledger is also honored as best supporting actor.

Christopher Nolan’s box office blockbuster “The Dark Knight,” was named best picture of 2008 by the African American Film Critics Assn. today. The Batman thriller also won in the best supporting actor category for the late Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker.

Frank Langella was selected best actor as former President Nixon in “Frost/Nixon, and Angelina Jolie won best actress as a single mom trying to find her missing son in “Changling.” Viola Davis earned best supporting actress for her turn as the mother of an altar boy in “Doubt.”

Danny Boyle was named best director for the indie critics’ darling, ” Slumdog Millionaire.”

The AAFCA, made up of African American media professionals across the U.S., also gave its Special Achievement Award to groundbreaking filmmaker Melvin van Peebles of “Sweet Sweetback’s

By Susan King
December 19, 2008

while surfing on photo bucket i’ve find this amazing batman drawing!

I’ve just find this absolutely gorgeous batman art and wanna share with you!

The sun report!! i don’t think this is serious..probably a very bad joke!

FUNNYMAN EDDIE MURPHY will play The Riddler in the next Batman movie, The Sun can reveal.

The Beverly Hills Cop star, 47, has been signed up by British director CHRISTOPHER NOLAN to reprise the role played by JIM CARREY in 1995’s Batman Forever.

Gotham villain … Eddie Murphy

The surprise move follows speculation linking Pirates of the Caribbean star JOHNNY DEPP to the part.

The film, set for a 2010 release, is being developed under the working title Gotham.

Execs have also signed up rising Transformers star SHIA LABEOUF, 22, to play Robin.

CHRISTIAN BALE will return as Bruce Wayne, while MICHAEL CAINE will again play Bruce’s assistant Alfred.

Meanwhile, Brit RACHEL WEISZ is said to be up for the Catwoman role.

Insiders also revealed to The Sun the flick will end on a cliffhanger over whether Batman survives a blast at Wayne Towers.

Nolan had been tight-lipped about the future of the Batman films after being rocked by the January death of HEATH LEDGER — tipped to receive a posthumous Oscar for his role as The Joker in The Dark Knight.

A film insider said: “Chris wasn’t sure if he wanted to do another movie but as soon as he decided to, he got the wheels in motion.

“Eddie’s a fantastic addition. Everyone’s excited to see what he does as the Riddler.”
By GORDON SMART and JESS ROGERS

‘Dark Knight,’ ‘Iron Man’ yield complex superheroes

Batman T-Shirt

A hyperkinetic, comicbook superhero blockbuster is normally popcorn fare, not Oscar fare. But this year is different. Both “Iron Man” and “The Dark Knight” are being regarded as serious contenders for Academy hardware.

So what is different this time around? The simple answer, of course, is that these two movies are better than most comicbook knockoffs — more skillfully made, more satisfyingly written and more complexly constructed with more conflicted heroes than the superhero norm.

But there is another answer that may not be as obvious — namely, that these films do what all enduring works of art do, whether within popular culture or outside it: They address serious issues and raise serious questions. These are, Oscar voters may note, films of ideas as well as of effects.

Superficially, both works present the usual conflict between good and evil. Batman is the personification of order — the force society needs to rein in the bad guys. Or as Police Commissioner Gordon puts it, he is the hero Gotham City needs, even if he is not always the one it wants.

Indeed, this is precisely how conservatives interpreted “The Dark Knight” shortly after its release. Batman is Gotham’s salvation, and he is justified when he has to go outside the law with his eavesdropping surveillance system because sometimes you just have to break the rules to save the world. Thus “The Dark Knight,” perhaps inadvertently, mirrors the Bush presidency — something, frankly, that wouldn’t necessarily enhance its Oscar chances.

The problem with this analysis is that it sells the film short and ignores virtually everything else in the movie, especially one of its most interesting features. “The Dark Knight” functions like a shell game. It sets up an idea and encourages viewers to accept it, only to then pick up the shell and reveal that the audience has been bamboozled.

For example, one assumes at the beginning of the film that Batman is our avenging angel. But it quickly becomes apparent that Batman is not like other heroes. He is the Dark Knight in part because he lives within a nimbus of darkness, but also because he brings that darkness with him. His own butler, Alfred, attributes Gotham’s intensifying crime spree to Batman’s overzealousness, and the city blames him for the murders the Joker commits when he demands that Batman reveal his identity.

In fact, the White Knight of the film, and another shell in the film’s game, is crusading District Attorney Harvey Dent. Dent is not a vigilante. Every bit as heroic as Batman, he operates within the law to bring justice. As a result, the film contrasts two kinds of heroism: On the one hand, good motives in the pursuit of order can justify any behavior (Batman). On the other, the system itself provides an order that must be honored (Dent).

Complicating matters, the Joker defies order altogether. As he says frequently throughout the movie, he is the agent of chaos — a self-described “dog chasing a car. I wouldn’t know what to do with it if I caught it.” But there is a method to his nihilism. The Joker seems bent on proving that the entire social order is a kind of hoax and that all rules exist to suppress human nature. “The only sensible way to live,” he says, “is without rules,” presumably because it is the only honest way to live, which is why he identifies with Batman, who can also eschew rules.

By this jaundiced view of humanity, both Batman and Harvey Dent are wrong in believing that evil can be controlled. Whether order comes from outside the law or within the law is irrelevant. Everybody is basically corrupt, and all order does is mask that fact.

The Joker’s final test of human indecency involves setting the passengers of one ferry boat against another, with each having the capacity to blow the other up. The Joker has given them a midnight deadline to beat the other to the punch. But instead, each party lets the passengers on the other live — which makes the real heroes of the film the citizens of Gotham themselves. In the end, it isn’t order or anomie, but human goodness that prevails. Batman’s only purpose is to guard against the aberrations.

All of this makes “The Dark Knight” a powerful film at the intellectual and even emotional levels where Oscar contenders usually dwell.

“Iron Man” is nowhere near as complex, but neither is it just a lot of noisy bombast. Largely, that’s because of Tony Stark’s transformation. The offhanded wryness of Robert Downey Jr.’s performance that won him so many critical plaudits is the expression of Stark’s cavalier attitude toward the world. He’s a mercenary with patter. “I’d be out of a job with peace,” the arms dealer jokes. But then, like a hero out of Joseph Campbell, Stark undergoes a near-death experience and has a revelation: “I came to realize that I have more to offer the world than just blowing things up.”

Stark’s nemesis, his one-time mentor and current partner, Obadiah Stane, is no Joker. Rather than embodying the chaos principle, he is a cold, calculating capitalist who measures life in power and money. When he kills innocent people, he calls it “collateral damage.”

In that context, the symbolism of the “Iron Man” is unmistakable. Power must be tempered by humanity, in this case literally placing the man inside the weapon. More, the weapon is almost literally powered by Stark’s heart, which is attached to a tiny atomic reactor. It is the human dimensions of Stark, even his fallibility, that make him heroic.

No one would claim that this is an earthshaking epiphany. Still, it raises the film above the typical cathartic muscle-flexing, and it adds an ironic edge to the genre. Whether that will be enough to get it Oscar attention remains to be seen, but “Iron Man,” like “The Dark Knight,” is at least on the voters’ radar, which is no small achievement. Ideas can do that for you, even when they are packaged in a comicbook extravaganza.

Source:
By NEAL GABLER

The next Batman installment is alive and kicking—definitely. We already mentioned today certain Warners sources are leaking to us that Rachel Weisz is being considered for the Catwoman role, too fab. But Warners officially isn’t saying bubkes. But other insiders working on the next installment, to follow up where The Dark Knight left off, say it’s all so a go:

Despite some recent interviews in which he down-played the possibility of returning as director again, Christopher Nolan (who helmed Knight) will for sure be back directing the third flick, we’re assured by a production mole. Christian Bale will obviously rejoin his director pal, and we’re very pleased to report that he’ll be playing a “sexier” Bruce Wayne. This is heaven-sent news, as, let’s face it, Bale couldn’t have looked any more constipated in that last flick.

Never mind. And as for Catwoman casting, look, when we chatted with Aaron Eckhart not long ago, he blabbed that he would love to see Angelina Jolie play the role. Well, sorry babes, as we spilled earlier today, Weisz is the one more likely, at this point, to be signed on to play the sexy puss. After all, Angie has her claws out enough in real life, right?

By the by, even though Warners did not comment on any of the above movie talk, additional studio sources did confirm it’s certainly “expected” Bale and Nolan will be back, pending a script which is being written as we gossip. However, let’s not forget the most important Batman buzz of all, right?

Who dare fill Heath’s shoes? A Batman movie is only as good as the villain, right? Don’t believe me? Just watch the Oscars next February, and let’s discuss after Heath nabs one of those babies posthumously.

So. Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin? Johnny Depp as anyone? Robert Pattinson as The Joker?

Spencer Pratt as himself? Jeez, the sky’s the friggin’ limit these days. Me? I vote for Pattinson. I just don’t buy that dude as a nonhuman blood-sucking vampire anyway, you?

Source : Ted Casablanca

Last time we checked in on Stephen King’s ten favorite films of the year, it was 2006 and we found titles like Waist Deep (?) and Snakes on a Plane. Okay, so maybe the legendary author didn’t watch many films that year — but here we are two years later, King once again dished out a top ten for Entertainment Weekly, and so maybe he’s managed to see a bit more. Check out King’s list below, with brief quotes from him for each — then read the rest over at EW.

1. The Dark Knight — “The best superhero movie ever. This is to cape-and-tights movies what Godfather II was to the gangster movie: a genre-defining event.”
2. Slumdog Millionaire — “It’s been years since the movies have produced such an affecting story about the power of friendship.”
3. WALL-E — “I don’t think it deserves a Best Picture Academy Award, but it certainly deserves to be nominated.”
4. Tropic Thunder — “The funniest, most daring comedy of the year.”
5. Funny Games — “It works as a savage parody of the snuff-porn genre even as it transcends it.”
6. The Bank Job — “High-tension cerebral thrills.”
7. Lakeview Terrace — “Jackson’s performance deserves an Academy Award nod, but won’t get one. Too bad.”
8. The Ruins — “It could have been ludicrous. Instead, it’s unrelenting.”
9. Redbelt — “… this is not your father’s Karate Kid.”
10. Death Race — “Death Race is filled with laconic violence and blasting muscle cars, but just beneath the surface is a biting satire of reality TV.”

So, is King nuts for suggesting that Samuel L. Jackson receive an Oscar nod for Lakeview Terrace? Do you agree with the horror guru, or does the man still need to see more movies?

Source : Erik Davis

The major promotion behind the DVD release of Warner Bros.’s summer blockbuster “The Dark Knight” appears to have worked — at least out of the gate.

The film, which brought in $530 million in ticket sales in the U.S., sold nearly 3 million copies Tuesday, the first day of its DVD release in the United States, Canada and Britain.

“The Dark Knight’s” retail reception is reminiscent of first-day sales for “The Matrix” and “Titanic” (any debut of 1 million or more units is considered a home run). At the present rate, “Dark Knight” looks to be on pace to catch Paramount Pictures’ “Iron Man,” which sold 7.2 million units in its first week on store shelves this year.

Hollywood has been anxiously watching home entertainment sales, as the recession deepens. Sales are off by about 2.6% this year compared to a year ago, according to Adams Media Research, with Blu-ray high definition disc purchases helping to offset some of the decline.

As much as 25% to 30% of the “Dark Knight” discs sold — or 600,000 copies — were purchased in the new Blu-ray high definition format. That surpasses the previous record set by “Iron Man,” which sold 260,000 Blu-ray discs upon its first day of release. Studio executives say it’s a sign the format is gaining traction with consumers.

“It’s encouraging,” said Ron Sanders, president of Warner Home Video.”The Blu-ray sales of ‘Dark Knight’ were exceptionally strong and much higher than our projections.”

By some accounts, DVD and Blu-ray disc sales outperformed other retail categories. While overall spending on Black Friday was up 3% compared with a year ago, home video sales rose 15%, according to DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group, an industry-supported trade group. (DEG bases its estimates on surveys of retailers, studios and industry data providers).

But Nielsen VideoScan offered a more bleak assessment of Thanksgiving week, reporting that home video sales fell 8.2% compared with a year ago. However, Nielsen’s data don’t include sales from Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which by some accounts represents 40% of the DVD market.

Retailers did brisk business in Blu-ray players. Researcher NPD Group reported that retailers sold 150,000 players, a 300% increase from a year ago, when two incompatible high-definition disc formats were duking it out for supremacy.

Blu-ray received a tremendous retail boost from Wal-Mart, which reportedly sold out of Magnavox players priced at $128.

source : LA Time

The Dark Knight (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray) tagged "the dark knight blu-ray" 3 times

The Dark Knight (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray)
By Christian Bale

Buy new: $17.49
121 used and new from $8.40
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Customer tags: batman(435), blu-ray(373), heath ledger(172), christian bale(151), high definition(122), christopher nolan(98), action(94), dc comics(79), superhero(49), aaron eckhart(23), joker(15), movie(10)

Batman film The Dark Knight is to be re-released in US cinemas in January, upping its chances of its box-office takings crossing the $1 billion mark.

According to the tracking website Box Office Mojo, its current worldwide takings stand at $996m (£678m).

Meanwhile, the British star of the film has been commenting on its chances of winning Academy Awards next year.

According to Christian Bale, the late Heath Ledger and director Christopher Nolan should be in contention.

“The serious contenders in this movie in my mind are Heath, Chris for director because he’s done an extraordinary job, and I do believe best picture as well,” said Bale on Wednesday.

Announcement

Released in cinemas in July, The Dark Knight is the most financially successful film of 2008 at the North American box office.

Its re-release on 23 January will come one day after the announcement of this year’s Oscar nominations.

It also follows the film’s DVD release in the UK and US next week.

“We wanted to provide one more opportunity for moviegoers to experience it on the big screen as it was meant to be seen,” said Dan Fellman, president of Warner Brothers’ domestic distribution in the US.

Only three films have grossed more than $1bn worldwide – Titanic, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and The Return of the King, the third Lord of the Rings film
Source : BBC

The Dark Knight (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray) tagged "the dark knight blu-ray" 3 times

The Dark Knight (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray] (Blu-ray)
By Christian Bale

Buy new: $17.49
121 used and new from $8.40
Customer Rating:

Customer tags: batman(435), blu-ray(373), heath ledger(172), christian bale(151), high definition(122), christopher nolan(98), action(94), dc comics(79), superhero(49), aaron eckhart(23), joker(15), movie(10)