After the screening of the prologue for the press earlier this week, IGN had a chance to talk with both Chris Nolan and Emma Thomas. While everything regarding the film continues to be secret, Nolan did open up about a few things.
IGN: We know you selected Bane as the villain of this film because you wanted him to be a physical challenge for Batman. But he's a character that, frankly, I didn't really read up on until I heard that he was going to be in the movie. I knew that he was the guy who broke Batman's back, and that's kind of all I knew about him. But the more I read about him, the more I became kind of fascinated by him, that this is a guy who was raised in prison and all that. How much of that backstory, the elements that made him who he was, do you retain in the film? And if you don't, were you worried at all that that would be like getting rid of Bruce Wayne seeing his parents shot, that impetus for why he is who he is?
Chris Nolan: Well, the liberating thing about dealing with a lesser known villain is you feel more creative freedom to embrace the elements of that character you feel can serve your story and ignore those that won't. But at the same time, we chose Bane because he has some very unique elements to who he is. As far as the emphasis to it in the film, I'm actually editing some right now, so you never quite know until it's done. But we certainly intend to do justice to it, to the character I've written and to the comics. And I think the significance of Bane, in our eyes, is his strength as an antagonist to Batman. Everything must serve that, including the nature of his past and how that will play into the story.
IGN: Gary Oldman said the other day something about the Harvey Dent Act. Is there a "Harvey Dent Act," an actual piece of legislation, and what can you tell us about sort of the shape that Gotham is in when we pick up the story eight years later?
Chris Nolan: Well, that's funny, I didn't read that. But there is a piece of legislation, and we are dealing with a Gotham that's moved on. In the last eight years, it has come to revere Harvey Dent in the way that Batman intended at the end of the last film.
IGN: In Dark Knight, Gordon and Batman make this spur-of-the-moment pact to lie and say about Dent, "He wasn't that guy (Two-Face)." Will we see the repercussion of that pact play out in this film?
Chris Nolan: (smiles) I don't think I want to answer that question.
For the entire interview, including the part of the interview with Emma Thomas, head over to IGN. The Dark Knight Rises hits theaters July 20, 2012.
Posted by Dustin Fritschel
