Christopher Nolan is one of my favorite directors, and being the fanboy that I am, it’s surprising that he was before he even agreed to helm Warner Bros. Pictures new Bat-franchise back in 2005. One of the things I dig about Nolan is that he refuses to fall into 3D gimmickry, though he understands the value of 70mm IMAX.
In a recent article with WSJ, Nolan spoke about being a kid in Chicago and visiting the Museum of Science and Industry to watch IMAX movies like Everest and To Fly!
“I remember looking at the audience every time a helicopter banked, and everyone was leaning slightly to the side, I had never seen an audience so immersed in a film.”
While The Dark Knight featured 30 minutes of IMAX footage, the hotly anticipated follow-up, The Dark Knight Rises will contain more than one hour of IMAX footage, the most ever shot for a feature film. Nolan’s agreement to direct The Dark Knight was contingent on Warner Bros. allowing him to shoot the film in IMAX, and he dismissed studios and directors that shrug off IMAX because of their view that the cameras are too loud, heavy and a challenge to maneuver.
Nolan said,
“There was a huge irony that we were told it would be too difficult to shoot a Hollywood movie on IMAX when we had this gigantic camera department, grips, electric, hundreds of people working for us. These were cameras that had been to the top of Mount Everest, to the bottom of the ocean and into outer space, but people thought we couldn’t make a feature film. It was absurd.”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_B2KqjoIn8[/youtube]
Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ The Dark Knight Rises is the epic conclusion to filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, Leading an all-star international cast, Oscar winner Christian Bale (The Fighter) again plays the dual role …of Bruce Wayne/Batman. The film also stars Anne Hathaway, as Selina Kyle; Tom Hardy, as Bane; Oscar winner Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose), as Miranda Tate; and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as John Blake. Returning to the main cast, Oscar winner Michael Caine (The Cider House Rules) plays Alfred; Gary Oldman is Commissioner Gordon; and Oscar winner Morgan Freeman (Million Dollar Baby) reprises the role of Lucius Fox.
The Dark Knight Rises is slated to hit theaters on July 20th, 2012.
