Official Batman Begins Thread

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This will be the official Batman Begins thread. News, rumours and images will be posted here constantly. Do check back here often if you're a fan of the Dark Knight.

Check out the darkly cool trailer from the oficial website of the Batman Begins right here. Not sure if this www.real.com/R/EMAL.040706EMAL33.r1n.11..R/click.real.com/?clipid=67519 work, but this batmanbegins.warnerbros.com/ definitely will.
Word on the street is, the teaser has been playing in front of The Village. I'm pretty sure it'll look better on the big screen.

And the pictures of the "Batsuit" as below.

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New images from Batman Begins, featuring Ken Watanabe as Ra's Al Ghul!

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Source: www.comics2film.com/



Script Review : Batman Begins
Posted on Fri, 4-Jun-2004

By Clint Morris

Knowing I’ve read David Goyer’s script, a few folks have checked in to ask me if “Batman Begins” is the ‘it-flick’ that so many others are saying it will be - many opinions too, based on script analysis. It’s a straight-forward ‘yes’ I reply with usually, but realise it’s probably time to go into it a little more profoundly, so here’s my take on Warner Bros’ “Batman Begins” – to the point and spoiler free – for every sceptic, devotee and bored blogger out there.

The Storyline – is it any good?
One could say an origins tale – this pretty much resembles what a ‘Batman: Year One’ would’ve been – would be easier to scribble on paper than fat charcoal. That could be true, but a good back-story is what will always keep an audience glued to the screen (Most of us remember the De Niro flashback scenes from ‘Godfather Part II’ as being the guts of the flick) and Goyer’s fleshed this one out better than a butcher would edible chook. Featuring Bruce as a tyke that witnesses his parents death, and as a result pretty much feels like an outsider and a pot of boiling two-minute noodles that’s been forgotten about (ready to explode), the script immediately seems more interested in telling us about the man behind the cowl rather than the well-attired Caped Crusader himself. Wayne’s an angry young chap. Kicking and punching his way through his younger years, he’s become somewhat of a renegade Russell Crowe – easily ticked off and bearing an observable odium against the world. And especially, and rightfully so, a grudge against the man who killed his beloved parents. To be honest, Goyer’s script doesn’t even resemble a Batman movie until the midway-point, largely because there’s no mention or sight of the Dark Knight, but if you stick with it, it grows on you and improves with each paragraph. Wayne eventually discovers a use for all this bent-up anger and comes in the form of a secret identity – a man to assist in capturing Gotham City’s criminals. Eventually, he’ll learn to control the inner demons. The action really kicks in when he dons the suit let me tell ya.

What’s the general tone?
One would immediately say ‘Dark’ but that’s what Tim Burton’s film was also described as. To explain it as a psychological thriller might be better. This is the tale of an angry young man that has to find his way and form a purpose to keep going on. Heck, its more “Good Will Hunting” than Adam West that’s for sure. It’s a real character piece, you get to know ‘everyone’, they’ve been written fantastically on paper (Wayne’s so much more human than he’s been in the previous movies) and much like you did when you first met John McClane you latch onto the improbable hero and root that it all works out for him.

Is it a realistic interpretation of the characters?
If we’re talking the comics, very much so, it’s obvious that Goyer is a huge fan. He’s obviously really thought about what kind of stratagem exists in the mind of the character, considered the world he lives in and meticulously plotted his motives for this first adventure. For starters, most probably assume that the Joker killed Batman’s parents, because Burton said so, but it’s not true, in the comics a guy named ‘Chill’ did that dire deed – and it’s remedied here.

How are the villains?
A lot different than you’d expect, in that they’re more than cardboard crunchers. Both Ra’s Al Ghul and the Scarecrow are fantastically written. These are real people, not just toy-fodder like Mr Freeze. They’ve both got great back stories; have excellent introductions and an even better curtain call. There’s a lot more Scarecrow/Crane in the story than there is Ra’s, but the former gets a fat chunk of screen time in the film’s final act – where as Crane takes a back seat there for a couple of pages – so it’s probably all equal by stories end.

How are the secondary characters?
Gordon – just great. He’s a decent guy that you can’t help but like. He’s one of the first to believe that ‘The Batman’ is all about doing something good and you kind of feel like jumping into the tale and slapping him on the back for his gutsy nerve. Rachel, Wayne’s child-hood friend and a D.A who assists Batman later on, is also a surprisingly well-written character. Surprising because in any other superhero movie she’d merely be a love interest and little more..Yes, there are some romantic sparks there (that’s inevitable….someone’s got to pucker up to Bats), but she’s also got a great little story going on there herself. Let’s hope Katie Holmes pulls it off .Alfred – much more than tea and scones. He’s the glue that holds Wayne and Wayne’s manor together it seems. He’s a sympathetic old soul. Can’t wait to see what Michael Caine does with it. Even the roles of the mystifying Ducard, Fox and Earle are pretty well-written and meaty; explaining why such big-time actors jumped at the chance to play what would normally be perceived as two-bit support roles.

Is there any cheese?
There are a couple of hokey lines, a dashing of black humour and the inevitable superhero self-referential Mickey, but nothing that’s not welcome. If anything, it breaks up the huge slab of action and adventure that occupies the film’s latter half. It’s a much darker film than Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” but it’s similar in the way it successfully meshes drama with spits and spurts of the light relief.

What about the action sequences?
As stated below, the second half of the film is full of action. From the moment Batman pops on screen, it’s pretty much a series of skirmishes, fist-foot fights, or chases. Speaking of Chases, just wait till you check out the car chase near the film’s middle – it’s going to be fantastic. One of the finest action sequences in sometime I predict. The big finale is also going to be quite spectacular (it involves a monorail) if what’s on the page is anything to go by. I assume three quarters of the budget will be going on just these two sequences.

Any link to the previous movies?
Without giving away anything of note, no, not particularly. Hopefully that means Prince won’t appear on the soundtrack either. In essence, this really is a ‘start over’ for the series.

But what did I think of the previous Batman movies?
I enjoyed the first Batman to a point. It was as fun as it was dawdling; it was as impressive as it was weird. I liked Keaton, I liked Nicholson….but the Joker became quite infuriating. As for the sequels, Pfeiffer’s Catwoman was sublime and sexy and the key to “Returns”, “Forever” was quite ok too but border lining on the Cheddar and “Batman and Robin”, well….couldn’t keep my eyes open. Never thought I’d watch a Batman film again actually after that abomination.

Closing Comments
This is going to be the best “Batman” movie ever. No butts about it. Sure, it’s probably got its problems and no doubt not everything is going to work as well with some as it will with others, but when something makes you thirsty as hell for the sequel, you know someone’s doing something right. The last couple of pages – the ending – frickin ties it all up skilfully and as good as one could wish for. Having spoken to Christian Bale several times over the years, I’m aware of just how much he likes the Batman character and I think that’s what’s going to make him strive to give it his best. He’s a fan of the superhero just as much as we are, so would indubitably be livid as heck if it wasn’t done right. And think about the rest of the film’s cast – Oldman, Holmes, Watanabe, Neeson, Freeman, Caine? – Why would they be some little superhero movie unless they honestly believed it was much more than that. In closing, I’ve got everything crossed for this baby and hope it’s the big one for Chrissy B. Pity we have to endure “Catwoman” first though.

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MAXIM ONLINE has an interview with BEGINS screenwriter David Goyer that may be of interest to you all. Here's a bit of it--

Source:www.maximonline.com/entertainment/articles/article_5954.html
Blade: Trinity director and the screenwriter of Batman Bagins, David Goyer discusses the long road he traveled from comic books to movies to comic book movies.

Interview by Paul Ulane

You don't need to look much further than Catwoman—and if you do, stop at Daredevil—to see what can happen to a kick-ass comic book character when it falls into the wrong set of greedy Hollywood hands. Which is exactly why you should get in line now for David Goyer's final installment in the Blade trilogy. A veteran at DC Comics who's already familiar with the Blade universe—he's the screenwriter for all three films—you can rest assured that with Goyer in the director's chair, geeky Internet bloggers will be silenced when it comes to pointing out inconsistencies between movie and book. Here's what the comic scribe turned movie director had to say about superfans, superpowers, and the super can on Trinity star Jessica Biel.

You wrote all three Blade films, but this is your first time directing in the series. Any pressure to maintain the style of the first two?
I don't think there is any pressure to maintain the style; I think it's to maintain the quality. From the first to the second, the style is very different—the second one was much more gothic. And the third one goes in a completely different direction.

Is there anything that the first two directors screwed up that you wanted to fix this time around?
I'm friends with both and I think they both made really great movies.

Come on, no cheap shots?
No cheap shots. There were things that we couldn't do in the other two that we could do here. There was a little bit of comedy in the first film, and more was written in the original script for the second, but it evolved differently during shooting. This film is much funnier than the other two, and when everyone initially hears that, they get alarmed and think we've turned it into Airplane. But this is just an unexpectedly funny movie.

Are you worried about soft comedic actors like Ryan Reynolds and Parker Posey holding their own in a brutally physical movie like this?
Not at all. [Test audiences] were totally blown away by Ryan. I mean he practically steals the movie. He's not just the quip guy, because he put on 30 pounds of muscle and fights [wrestler] Triple H. He was so concerned about being credible in the action scenes—the same goes for Jessica Biel—so we just trained the f**k out of them. And they totally give Wesley a run for his money. Let's just put it this way: Ryan auditioned for Superman after they saw him in this. And Parker's hysterical in the movie and says things that are totally outrageous.

As far as your cast in Blade, who's easier to coach as a director: Wesley Snipes or Triple H?
Triple H. He came in completely humble. Sometimes people come in from another field and bring an attitude, but he didn't at all. He's a nice guy and he gets the irony in what he does. He plays a big thug in the movie, but we also do some things with him that are quite funny, where we play against type. I really like him and think he could actually become something.

Are we smelling the next Rock cooking?
I don't know. If he's smart, he'll take some roles in comedies. He has a great sense of comedic timing, and you've never really seen that in what he's done. That role didn't originally have any comedy, but he was so funny we added some bits for him.

Is it difficult to make the transition from writer to director?
In some ways it's harder to become a director if you're already an established writer, because there's a hierarchy in Hollywood. New Line was initially used to me playing a certain role, but now I've made the switch. I have a deal to direct another movie with them, so I think they're happy. We might even do a spin-off.

Are you going to keep both careers going?
No, I'm not going to write for anyone else anymore. I'm only directing now—it's more fun.

What's the hardest part about seeing someone else directing something you slaved over as a writer?
Uh…them f**king it up.

How much power do you have when a director starts "f**king it up?"
It depends on your relationship with the studio and the director. I'm quite happy with the first two Blade movies because I was on very good terms with Stephen Norrington and Guillermo del Toro. That's not to say we didn't argue. We got into it sometimes, and there are some things in both movies that I would've done differently. But I am mostly happy with the Blade films and Dark City, though some of the films I did earlier in my career I can't even bear to watch because they got so f**ked up.

And your name is still attached?
Yeah, I wish my name wasn't. I've taken my name off of some films, and there are others that I wish I did. You know, a lot of writers become directors out of self-defense.

Is that why you've decided to keep that ass groove in the director's chair?
In recent years it wasn't out of self-defense because I was fortunate enough to work with a bunch of good directors. I worked with del Toro [Blade II], Norrington [Blade], Alex Proyas [Dark City], and Christopher Nolan [Batman Begins]. Those are all guys I admire and I think are awesome. But just writing wasn't challenging me enough anymore.

Are you concerned about being pigeonholed, or do you want to fend off comic book nerds in chat rooms for the rest of your life?
Yeah, it's a concern. It's really hard to break out of that. It seems like I'm offered every f**king comic book project. Like, one every week.

At least the ones you've chosen have turned out well.
Yeah, It's hard for me because I genuinely love comics, so it's a good match. I consulted on Ironman, even though I didn't do any writing. I just came in for a week and gave them story notes, which I do on a lot of movies. It's hard for me to sit back and say, "Wait, you're going to give Lex Luther hair?!" But the first film I directed, ZigZag, was a little independent film and straight drama, so I proved to people that I could do something else.

Do you ever get overly analytical feedback from comic book nerds…er, fans about minor inconsistencies?
Oh yeah. But fortunately, in general, the nerd audience knows that I've written comics for DC for four years and have street cred. I can still quote my comic book history and go up against most any nerd. In terms of inconsistency, Deacon Frost in the original Blade comic book was this 60-year-old former church deacon in the South that had been turned into a vampire and looked like Colonel Sanders. He had this little beard and wore a cape and was just moronic. So I turned him into that Stephen Dorff character and a couple of purists took offense.

One time there were some people online saying, "Whistler [Blade's mentor] never had a daughter!" And people didn't realize that Whistler wasn't in the comic books—I created Whistler. And I'm like, "I created the character and he can do whatever he wants!" But then there are other cases. I was involved in the horrible, horrible sequel to The Crow, a terrible, terrible movie. I had death threats from people on the Internet because it was impugning the memory of Brandon Lee. I don't blame them. But in my original treatment for the film, the lead character was a female born in Victorian England, because I thought, You can't compete with Brandon Lee. But if you had a woman in Victorian England, then you're not doing the same story, and that's what I started with…and then the film got made and it truly was horrible. So I don't blame them for that. I agree with them.

Do you have any fact checkers responsible for keeping the story in line with the source material?
I don't need them. I can quote you chapter and verse of just about any book. I know who killed Gwen Stacy in Spiderman. I know who owned Stark Industries when Tony Stark went on a bender. I know all of that shit.

Are you going to be doing any consultations in the future?
Well, I'm friends with all the Marvel guys. And they just ask me opinions about the story lines and which villain to use—sometimes it's formal, sometimes it's not. For Ironman, I actually got paid by New Line to consult.

You wrote the new Batman, got any new secrets you can leak?
I'm sorry, there's such a heinous nondisclosure agreement for that. I can basically comment on stuff that's been released. What do you want to hear?

Give us a progress report that won't get either of us sued.
I'm approaching the movie from a professional standpoint, but also as a fan. And I can honestly say that as a kid who grew up in the '70s reading Batman comics, there were many times that I was working on the movie and I would say to Chris [Nolan, the director], "Holy shit, I can't believe they're letting us do this." It is so different from the other installments.

Does it resemble the style of any of the previous Batman flicks?
No. I think the first one is the best of the ones that came before. But this movie is so different from all of them that it's like comparing the cartoons to it. The other movies had points of reference, like the metropolis, but our points of reference are The Man Who Would Be King, Lawrence of Arabia, On Her Majesty's Secret Service—we are pulling from things that inspired us.

Does this mean no Alicia Silverstone?
No. And no bat nipples, no inline skating…Of all the movies, it's definitely the one in spirit that's closest to the comics. We didn't arbitrarily change any names, even minor characters. Having said that, there are parts that have never been told in the comics, and DC was not only cool with us coming up with some new back story, but Warner Bros. let us do certain things that will totally shock people. I'm really happy with it.

Blade: Trinity is scheduled to hit theaters December 10, 2004.

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Below is an insightful article on Batman Begins, extracted from comics2film.com...

Source:www.comics2film.com/FanFrame.php?f_id=9581

Batman is back, and not only is he deeper, darker and more sinister than before – he's Welsher too, and has had four genuine £1 million, 100mph Batmobiles built for him. John Hiscock reports

It is nearing midnight and the street leading to Chicago's Franklin Bridge is jammed with hundreds of extras dressed as riot police, firemen and paramedics.


A darker knight than before: Christian Bale stars in Batman Begins

Someone hoses down the street to give it a wet-by-night look while lights and cameras are moved into position and police cars, men on horseback and film production assistants mob the entrance to the bridge.

Everyone is waiting for the Batmobile to roll into position for a stunt involving a car jump across the Chicago River.

Calmly supervising the apparent chaos is the 33-year-old British director Chris Nolan, who has never before directed an action film, let alone anything like Batman Begins, the £100 million production that Warner Bros executives hope will revive the lucrative Batman franchise, which crashed with the disastrous Batman and Robin in 1997.

Nolan, whose previous films include the low-budget Memento and Insomnia, won the job on the basis of his enthusiasm, ideas and a promise to return Batman to its roots in character drama. Unlike Tim Burton's gothic Batman fantasies, Nolan has opted for gritty urban realism, delving into just how and why Bruce Wayne became Batman.

"This Batman is grounded in reality," he explains, leaning against the bar of a nearby restaurant during a break in filming. "He has no super-powers; all he has is his wealth, which he uses to obtain the technology he needs to do what he has to do."

While the choice of Nolan may be something of a gamble, an even bigger roll of the dice is his casting of Christian Bale, a British actor relatively unknown to American audiences, as Batman.

The Welsh-born Bale, who as a child actor starred in Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun and in 2000 played the serial killer Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, is portraying Batman as a sinister figure.

Bale's Batman is far removed from the campy, comic-book character played by Adam West in the 1960s television series and darker than previous film Batmen Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer and George Clooney, whose nipple-studded Batsuit made the Caped Crusader more of a laughing stock than a hero.

"This Batman remains in the shadows and is fuelled by a great deal of rage," says Bale, 30. "He has tremendous anger. He's not a knight in shining armour, because of his personal need for revenge."

Nolan has surrounded Bale with virtually an all-British crew and cast, which includes Michael Caine as Bruce Wayne's butler and guardian, Alfred; Gary Oldman as Lieut James Gordon of the Gotham City police department; and Liam Neeson as Wayne's mysterious mentor, Henri Ducard.

Most of the filming is being done at Shepperton, where a dank, monstrous Batcave has been built, complete with lagoon, waterfall and subterranean bachelor pad. In a converted airport hangar, Nolan's crew have built a full city block of Gotham, much of it based on the slums of Kowloon in Hong Kong, which were torn down in 1994.

For added realism, many of the outdoor scenes are being shot in Chicago, which is standing in for Gotham City.

City officials have co-operated by blocking off streets to allow the high-tech, armour-plated Batmobile to roar through the city at speeds of up to 100mph, and some of the city's buildings are being used for spectacular stunts involving Batman and the arch-villains, Scarecrow, played by Cillian Murphy, and eco-terrorist Ra's Al Ghul, played by Japanese actor Ken Watanabe.

Nolan studied 65 years of Batman comics to come up with Batman Begins, the story of how a young Bruce Wayne sees his parents murdered and then, after a long exile, returns to Gotham as a 25-year-old bent on seeking revenge. "Batman is one of the great figures of pop culture, but there has to be a good reason for making this film," says Nolan.


"I wanted to make Batman more like a creature than a human being"
According to the new storyline, which Nolan concocted with David Goyer, Wayne's family's military subcontracting business, Wayne Enterprises, has been seized by shareholders who have dumped the company's most ambitious designs and their inventor, Lucius Fox, played by Morgan Freeman, on the scrapheap.

Wayne befriends Fox, using his designs to create Batman, just in time to take on the villainous Scarecrow, who is intent on poisoning all of Gotham.

But the starting point for Nolan's vision was the Batmobile. For a full year he and his British production designer Nathan Crowley holed up in the garage of Nolan's Los Angeles house working on a design for the Batmobile that would make sense for the story.

"I wanted to make sure that the Batmobile, like everything else in the film, is possible and believable," says Nolan.

Unlike the Batmobiles in previous films, this one is a genuine, high-speed, militaristic vehicle – a muscle-car for a tortured soul. A cross between a Lamborghini and a Humvee with three engines – one of them a jet – the front is covered with jagged plates of armour.

Four have been built at a cost of £1 million each and stunt driver George Cottle swears they are among the fastest vehicles he has ever driven.

The man at the centre of all the activity and expense, Christian Bale, treats everything with a cool nonchalance and is seemingly undaunted by the responsibility he bears. Like the character he portrays, he is something of a loner and takes his job seriously.

"This is probably the biggest film I will ever do, and if I didn't treat it seriously, nobody else would," he says. "I wanted to make Batman more like a creature, more like a beast, than a human being. I didn't want him to be just a funny bloke in a fancy-dress costume. You're either going to look like a complete fool or you're going to look like a bad-ass. So you have to look like a bad-ass."

His female lead, American actress Katie Holmes, 26, who plays the Gotham district attorney Rachel Dawes, has no doubts about her co-star. "He's a great Batman," she says. "I got the chills when I first saw him in his costume. Christian's ideal for the part because he's got a bit of a dark side, too."

Bale began acting in British television commercials when he was nine and appeared on stage with Rowan Atkinson in the comedy The Nerd.

His film break came when, at 13, he won the leading role in Empire of the Sun. He moved to America in 1992 to portray the pro-labour leader of a band of urchins hawking newspapers in the ill-fated Disney musical Newsies and then played Laurie in Gillian Armstrong's Little Women.

He followed that with Velvet Goldmine and several low-budget and not very successful films until he undertook his most challenging role of Wall Street stockbroker-cum-serial killer Patrick Bateman in the controversial American Psycho.

He had just lost 80lbs for his role in the psychological thriller The Machinist when he was cast as Batman, so he had to work hard to quickly regain the weight.

Now he is struggling to keep cool and retain his weight in the confines of the neoprene-and-foam-latex Batsuit. "It's hot, dark, sweaty, claustrophobic and it gives me a headache," he says with a grin. "But I'm not going to sit around whining about it."

Due for release next summer, Batman Begins may not yet mean anything to cinemagoers, but the odds are that they will be seeing plenty of Christian Bale in the next few years: he has already signed up for two Batman sequels.

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Batman Begins Trailer with Ocean's Twelve

Source: Superhero Hype! November 16, 2004


Superhero Hype! has learned that a new trailer for Warner Bros. Pictures' Batman Begins, directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Christian Bale, will hit theaters with the studio's sequel "Ocean's Twelve" on December 10.

You can probably expect the trailer to come online earlier that week and it will most likely air on entertainment programs as well.

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Source:www.visimag.com/filmreview/fs55_feat01.htm

The Visual Imagination website had an interview with Christian Bale recently on the upcoming Batman Begins. Check it out.


We find out why the British actor is the perfect Bruce Wayne…
Just weeks before beginning work on Batman Begins, actor Christian Bale was a shell of his former self, hardly in any condition to play a superhero. Bale was in Barcelona, Spain, filming the psychological thriller The Machinist, a film in which Bale plays a insomnia-ravaged machinist whose body weakens with every passing minute. Bale, the prototypical method actor, shed 60 pounds for the role, going from 180 pounds to a frail 120 pounds. He was a walking skeleton. “It was just six weeks before I was to do my test for Batman Begins and I was only 120 pounds and felt very weak,” says Bale. “I didn’t have a doctor on The Machinist either – I just stopped eating completely because if you eat anything in that condition, you can get real puffy and this guy I played was literally wasting away. When I finished The Machinist, and I knew I had to turn my attention to Batman Begins, I just started eating everything and I got back to my normal weight in time for my test which was only six weeks later. I knew that director Christopher Nolan would have a hard time selling me to the studio if I’d looked like I’d looked in Spain. When I gained the weight back, I think I looked good, but I had no strength at all and I was sick all the time. I suppose I could’ve relied on CGI, for my work in The Machinist, but I felt I had to lose the weight to play that character, Trevor Reznik, and I had to gain the weight back to play Batman.”

Bale beat out legions of other actors to play Batman in Batman Begins, including Cillian Murphy who wound up playing Scarecrow in the film, but director Christopher Nolan chose Bale who, despite not being a box office draw or household name, was thought by the production team to be the perfect choice to create a new origin for Batman since, as the name suggests, it represents a new beginning in the film franchise, not another sequel. Bale is thrilled to be able to create a new Batman, right from the start. “I was a big fan of the comics and films, but the one thing I noticed about the films is that the villains tended to be more interesting than Batman,” says Bale. “Reading the comics, I’ve always felt that Batman was a very interesting character – at least as interesting as the villains – and I think this film gets back to that. This is an origin story, not a sequel, and the theme of the story is one of realism. We know that Batman doesn’t have superhuman powers, but you’ll see it in this film, and we find out how the Bat Cave works, where Batman gets his weapons and how the Batmobile really works. The biggest thing is that Batman’s the most interesting character in the film. Preparing for the film, I started reading all of the comics, and my favourite books were Year One and The Long Halloween. The villains in those stories were fascinating, but Batman was much more fascinating.”

by David Grove

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The very appropriately moody Batman Begins's first poster.

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KICKASS!!!