Analysts said its success would be influenced by the lengthy running time that limited the number of screenings per day, and counter-programming from the romantic comedy Mamma Mia!which surveyed well with womenand the family comedy Space Chimps. [392], Ledger's Joker is considered one of the greatest cinematic villains; several publications placed his portrayal second only to Darth Vader. Christopher wanted the team to focus on countering the negative reaction to Ledger's casting and controlling the revelation of the Joker's appearance. Based on the DC Comics supervillain of the same name, the Joker is depicted as a psychopathic criminal mastermind with a warped, sadistic sense of humor. Freeze) and Uma Thurman (Poison Ivy) fell [310][319] Dent represents the fulfillment of American idealism, a noble person who can work within the confines of the law and allow Batman to retire, but the fear and chaos embodied by the Joker taints that idealism and corrupts Dent absolutely. [ac] It retained the number-one position in its second weekend with a total gross of $75.2million, ahead of the debuting Step Brothers ($31million), giving it the highest-grossing second weekend. [311] According to professor Martin Fradley, among others, Batman's "noble lie" and Gordon's support of it is a cynical endorsement of deception and totalitarianism. Based on the DC Comics superhero, Batman, it is the sequel to Batman Begins (2005) and the second installment in The Dark Knight Trilogy. The Batman: Everyone Who Played The Dark Knight On The Big Screen, Ranked By Mat Elfring and Mason Downey on February 28, 2022 at 12:03PM PST For [307][308], A central theme of The Dark Knight is escalation, particularly the rise of the Joker in response to Batman's vigilantism. Dent claims he is Batman to lure out the Joker, who attacks the police convoy transporting him. [67] During discussions on the portrayal of Dent's transformation into Two-Face, Eckhart and Christopher agreed to ignore Tommy Lee Jones's "colorful" portrayal in Batman Forever (1995), in which the character has pink hair and wears a split designer suit, in favor of a more realistic, slightly burnt, neutral-toned suit. [189][190] It retained the number-one position in its third ($42.7million) and fourth ($26.1million) weekends, before falling to second place in its fifth, with a gross of $16.4million, behind the debuting Tropic Thunder ($25.8million). [329][335], Directors including Sam Mendes (Skyfall), Ryan Coogler (Black Panther), and David Ayer (Suicide Squad), have cited it as an influence on their work, and Steven Spielberg listed it among his favorite films. The Joker escapes custody, extracts the fortune's location from Lau, and burns all of it. [289] The Dark Knight sold 3million copies across both formats on its launch day in the U.S., Canada, and the UK; Blu-ray discs comprised about 25%30% of the salesaround 600,000 units. As panic grips the city, the Joker reveals two evacuation ferries, one carrying civilians and the other prisoners, are rigged to explode at midnight unless one group sacrifices the other. [34][151] John Caglione Jr designed Joker's "organic" makeup to look as though it had been worn for days; this idea was partly based on more of Bacon's works. Daredevil, starring in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy from 2005 to 2012. Unprejudiced. In the film, Batman is forced out of his self-imposed retirement following the events of The Dark Knight; he allies with Selina Kyle / Catwoman to take on Bane, a physically imposing revolutionary allied with the League of Shadows that is featured in Batman Begins. Gotham's mafia bosses gather to discuss protecting their organizations from the Joker, the police, and Batman. [135][35], Unlike the design process of Batman Begins, which was restrained by a need to represent Batman iconography, audience acceptance of its realistic setting gave The Dark Knight more design freedom. Shortly after, Gunn confirmed that Ben Affleck - who had previously played the Dark Knight in Zack Snyder's films and was originally going to direct the movie that [66][147] Hemming designed Joker's overall appearance, which he based on fashion-and-music celebrities to create a modern and trendy look. [2], The cast also features Joshua Harto as Wayne Enterprises employee Coleman Reese,[23] Anthony Michael Hall as news reporter Mike Engel,[24][25] Nstor Carbonell as mayor Anthony Garcia, William Fichtner as a bank manager, Nydia Rodriguez Terracina as Judge Surrillo,[2] Tom "Tiny" Lister Jr. as a prisoner, Beatrice Rosen as Wayne's Russian ballerina date, and David Dastmalchian as the Joker's paranoid schizophrenic henchman Thomas Schiff. He targets Dent at a fundraising dinner and throws Rachel out of a window, but Batman rescues her. [101][109] Filming in Chicago concluded on September 1, ending with scenes of Wayne driving and crashing his car, before the production returned to England. His fighting style was designed to appear improvised and erratic. Influence also came from the 1953 painting Study after Velzquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X by Francis Baconsuggested by Christopher and the character's comic-book appearances. I was absolutely wrecked. [ab] The film benefited from repeat viewings by younger audiences and had broad appeal, with 52% of the audience being male and an equal number of those under 25 years old, and those of 25 or older. Dent takes Gordon's family hostage, blaming his negligence for Rachel's death. WebFans were exhausted by director Joel Schumacher's colorful aesthetic and the cartoonish villains played by Arnold Schwarzenegger (Mr. [35][44][45] Christopher found writing the Joker the easiest aspect of the script. Their efforts are derailed by the Joker, an anarchistic mastermind who seeks to test how far Batman will go to save the city from chaos. Lucius Fox threatens to stop helping Batman in response, believing he has crossed an ethical boundary, and although Batman agrees these violations are unacceptable and destroys the technology, the film demonstrates he could not have stopped the Joker in time without it. The owners refused permission to film a stunt in which Batman suspends a SWAT team from the building, so this was filmed from the fortieth floor of a separate building site. Roger Ebert said it, alongside Iron Man, had redefined the potential of superhero films by combining comic-book tropes with real world events. Production designer Nathan Crowley said the clean, neat lines of Chicagoan architecture enhanced the urban-crime drama they wanted to make, and that Batman had helped improve the city. [217] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+-to-F scale. [138] Chris Corbould, the film's special effects supervisor,[139] oversaw the 700 effect shots Double Negative and Framestore produced; there were relatively few effects compared to equivalent films because Christopher only used computer-generated imaging where practical effects would not suffice. [184][275][285], Retrospective analysis has focused on the way studios, eager to replicate its performance, released tonally dark, gritty, and realistic films, or reboots of existing franchises, many of which failed critically or commercially. [313] Author Andrew Klavan said Batman is a stand-in for then-U.S. president George W. Bush and justified the breaching of "boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that [Batman] will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past". He developed the character's voice by mixing a high-pitch and low-pitch, which was inspired by ventriloquist performances. WebBurn Gorman was born on September 1, 1974 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA. [bm] The "pencil trick" scene, in which Joker makes a pencil disappear by slamming a mobster's head on it, is considered an iconic scene and among the film's most famous. It was an exhausting process. [310][311], The Dark Knight focuses on the moral and ethical battles faced by the central characters, and the compromises they make to defeat the Joker under extraordinary circumstances. [q] This made it the first major motion picture to use IMAX technology, which was generally employed for documentaries. [210] The Atlantic wrote Iron Man's legacy in launching the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) could not have happened without the financial and critical success of The Dark Knight, which made comic book adaptations a central focus of film studios. The city mourns Dent as a hero, and the police launch a manhunt for Batman. [bc] Its financial, critical, and cultural successes legitimized the genre with film studios at a time when recent films, such as Daredevil, Hulk (both 2003), Fantastic Four (2005), and Superman Returns (2006) had failed to meet expectations. Kevin Conroy is an American actor and voice actor who has become synonymous with the character of Batman. [376] As of 2022, it remains the highest critically rated Batman film according to Rotten Tomatoes, and is often ranked as the best film featuring the character. With the help of Wayne Enterprises CEO Lucius Fox, Batman finds Lau in Hong Kong and returns him to the custody of Gotham police. Caglione Jr used a theatrical makeup technique for the application; he instructed Ledger to scrunch up his face so different cracks and textures were created once the makeup was applied and Ledger relaxed. [206] The Dark Knight earned about $469.7million outside the U.S. and Canada, its highest grosses coming from the United Kingdom ($89.1million), Australia ($39.9million), Germany ($29.7million), France ($27.5million), Mexico ($25million), South Korea ($24.7million), and Brazil ($20.2million). Although Gordon saves the mayor, the Joker threatens his attacks will continue until Batman reveals his identity. WebBruce Wayne / Batman: Gary Oldman Commissioner Gordon: Tom Hardy Bane: Joseph Gordon-Levitt Blake: Anne Hathaway Selina: Marion Cotillard Miranda: Morgan [bn] Similarly, the character's line "why so serious?" [310] The scene in which Batman stands in the ruins of a destroyed building, having failed to prevent the Joker's plot, is reminiscent of the World Trade Center site after September 11. [34][152][153], Composers James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer, who had also worked on Batman Begins, scored The Dark Knight because Christopher believed it was important to bridge the musical-narrative gap between the films. But you were wrong. [at] Genre films such as those based on comic books were also generally ignored by Academy voters. [375] In 2020, Empire magazine named it third-best, behind The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). [ad], The Dark Knight was released in Australia and Taiwan on Wednesday, July 16, 2008, and opened in twenty markets by the weekend. [66] Dent's desire to work outside the law is seen in his support of Batman's vigilantism to accomplish what he cannot. According to English professor Daniel Boscaljon, Dent is not broken; he believes in a different form of justice in a seemingly unjust world, flipping a coin because it is "Unbiased. The lines became popular internet memes. David Wolinsky on Google+ The products discussed here were independently chosen by our editors. [as] At the 13th Satellite Awards, The Dark Knight received one award for Sound Editing or Mixing (Richard King, Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo). [339][340][341] U.S. President Barack Obama used Joker to explain the growth of Islamic State (IS) military group, saying " the gang leaders of Gotham are meeting they were thugs, but there was a kind of order the Joker comes in and lights the whole city on fire. [35][77] Chicagoan authorities had been supportive during filming of Batman Begins, allowing the production to shut stretches of roads, freeways, and bridges. [r] Warner Bros. was reluctant to endorse the use of the technology because the cameras were large and unwieldy, and purchasing and processing the film stock cost up to four times as much as typical 35mm film. [av] A separate, limited-edition Blu-ray disc set came with a Batpod figurine. [IS] is the Joker. [34], The first scene filmed was the bank heist, which was shot in the Old Chicago Main Post Office over five days. [az] Boscaljon wrote the residents and criminals believe in a form of order and rules that must be obeyed; the Joker deliberately upends this belief because he has no rules or limitations. Maroni has previously been played in live-action by Eric Roberts in The Dark Knight and David Zayas in Gotham. & Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Bat-Manga! [261][270][271] The Dark Knight also won an award for Best Sound Editing (King), and received six nominations for Best Art Direction (Crowley and Peter Lando), Best Cinematography (Pfister), Best Film Editing (Smith), Best Makeup (Caglione Jr. and O'Sullivan), Best Sound Mixing (Hirschberg, Rizzo, and Ed Novick), and Best Visual Effects (Davis, Corbould, Webber, and Franklin). [10][52] Eckhart found portraying conflicted characters to be interesting; he said the difference between Dent and Batman is the distance they are willing to go for their causes, and that after Dent's corruption he remains a crime fighter but he takes this to an extreme because he dislikes the restrictions of the law. [418][419][420] The Dark Knight Rises was a financial success, surpassing the box office of The Dark Knight,[421] and was generally well received by critics but proved more divisive with audiences.[bq]. Delivery methods of film reels were randomized and copies had a chain of custody to track who had access. Christopher said cameras that could be used on Mount Everest could be used for The Dark Knight, and had cinematographer Wally Pfister and his crew begin training to use the equipment in January 2007 to test its feasibility. [399] In 2022, Variety listed him as the best superhero film performance of the preceding 50 years (Eckhart appears at number 22). Over 17,000 people voted the film into the top ten of American Cinematographer's "Best-Shot Film of 19982008" list,[411] and listeners of BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 1Xtra named it their eighth-favorite film.