14 DAY TRIAL // Shooting for Chris Nolan’s third and final Batman film, “The Dark Knight Rises,” has wrapped and the film will go next into post-production for a 2012 release. In a new interview, leading star Christian Bale confirms this was his last take on the caped crusader.
For fans of Nolan’s franchise, this doesn’t come as a surprise since both Nolan and Bale said before they would not make a fourth film.
However, with the latest confirmation, the last and faintest glimmer of hope is gone. Or, as Bale puts it in a recent interview cited by Us Weekly, it’s the end of an era.
Indeed, it is.
“I wrapped a few days ago so that will be the last time I’m taking that [Batman hood] off,” Bale says, stressing he will never reprise the role again.
“I believe that the whole production wrapped yesterday, so it’s all done. Everything’s finished. It’s me and [director Christopher Nolan] – that will be the end of that Batman era,” the actor explains.
Nolan too said repeatedly that he’d always imagined Batman as a trilogy, so he would not do a fourth film. Bale, on the other hand, once said that, even if the studio greenlighted another Batman film, he wouldn’t do it without the famous director.
“The Dark Knight Rises” arrives in theaters in the summer of 2012. It will include new additions to the cast, whose involvement has generated plenty of interest with the fans: Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway as Catwoman and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
If you ask Bale, he’d tell you Hathaway had it the hardest for the film.
“In many ways, [Hathaway] has the hardest job. There are a number of people who feel that the Catwoman role has been defined previously. So, I always saw Anne’s role as being the toughest job of any of us,” explains the star.
He also has a few kind words to say about Levitt, considered one of the most promising young actors of the day, talented and extremely versatile.
“Joseph is a very intriguing guy. He’s somebody who truly seems to love acting. He’s a good, smart guy,” Christian says.
Tom Hardy recently sat down with Empire magazine to dish out the details on the villain in the film, Bane. See here for more on that.