Warner Bros. attended this year's CinemaCon and Chris Nolan was on hand for The Dark Knight Rises. During the presentation by Warner Bros., Nolan took to the stage and showed off about five minutes of new footage. Some of the footage has been seen in various forms through previous trailers or the prologue, but tons of new things were shown as well. Entertainment Weekly attended the showing and gave a description of what was shown.
The clips began with an extended scene of Bane (played by Inception’s Tom Hardy) and his crew hijacking a plane in an innovative way. Then it cuts to a series of shots showing Christian Bale as an aging — and perhaps ailing — Batman. (This film is set eight years after 2008′s The Dark Knight.)
Bale has sunken eyes; he looks pale and haggard, and uses a cane. By comparison, Michael Caine’s Alfred appears as if he hasn’t aged a day.
“Don’t worry, Master Wayne,” the butler reassures him later in the footage. “It takes a little time to get back in the swing of things.”
Anne Hathaway’s Selina Kyle (a.k.a. Catwoman) is a maid working in Wayne Manor. On screen, she is nearly skewered by a crossbow arrow Bruce appears to be firing in his dining room. Nolan doesn’t include much dialogue here, but we see the maid leaving the mansion and peeling off her uniform as her demeanor changes, Keyser Söze-style.
There are several shots of Joseph Gordon-Levitt prowling through decimated city streets with a gun drawn. Exactly how his Gotham cop John Blake fits into the story remain under wraps, though.
As Bale sports the bat ears, and Hathaway dons the cat ears, the two costumed characters confront each other. “You’ve given them everything,” she says.
“Not everything. Not yet,” he growls back.
Just what that means, what goal she’s working toward, or who exactly “them” is, is left mysterious.
An explosion seals off downtown Gotham, allowing an army of infiltrators – or maybe just the dispossessed — to lay waste to the privileged class of the city while police, and even Batman, are helpless to stop it. Unlike many popcorn blockbusters, TDKR is unafraid of civilian casualties of the villain’s plot.
For another description has popped over at IGN as well.
The Dark Knight Rises hits theaters July 20, 2012.
Posted by Dustin Fritschel