49 Fun Facts About The Dark Knight Rises

Which law has crushed organized crime in The Dark Knight Rises?

The Dent Act was built on a lie: passed after Harvey Dent's death eight years earlier, it honoured him as a hero while Gordon hid his crimes and let Batman take the blame.

Who plays the masked villain Bane in The Dark Knight Rises?

Tom Hardy said he based Bane's unusual voice on Bartley Gorman, an Irish Traveller and bare-knuckle boxer he called the king of the gypsies.

Who plays the cat burglar Selina Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises?

Anne Hathaway trained in martial arts for the part, building on her dance background, and her catsuit's spike-heeled boots were designed to double as weapons.

Which 1940s screen star, a model for the comic-book Catwoman, did The Dark Knight Rises' Selina Kyle actress study?

Hedy Lamarr's films taught the actress to slow her breathing: she noticed Lamarr's long, languid exhales on screen and built Selina's poise on them.

Who plays Miranda Tate, later unmasked as Talia al Ghul, in The Dark Knight Rises?

Marion Cotillard, who had played Mal for Nolan in Inception, spends the film as Bruce Wayne's ally and lover before stabbing Batman and revealing who she is.

In The Dark Knight Rises, what is revealed to be police officer John Blake's legal first name?

Robin is a nod to Batman's comic-book sidekick, and the film ends with Blake finding his way into the Batcave that Bruce Wayne left to him.

Who plays Gotham police officer John Blake in The Dark Knight Rises?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Blake is the first cop to sense that something is wrong in Gotham, and Gordon rewards those instincts by promoting him to detective.

Who plays John Daggett, the rival billionaire who hires Bane in The Dark Knight Rises?

Ben Mendelsohn's Daggett is behind the theft of Bruce Wayne's fingerprints, which are used for fraudulent trades that bankrupt Bruce and open his company to a takeover.

Which Dickens novel did Christopher Nolan cite as the inspiration for his draft of The Dark Knight Rises?

A Tale of Two Cities even supplies Gordon's eulogy for Bruce Wayne, which is taken directly from the novel, and Nolan said his draft was all about the book.

In The Dark Knight Rises, Bane's habit of finger-knitting paracord nods to which Dickens character?

Madame Defarge knits the names of the condemned into her work as she sends people to their deaths, and Warner Bros. confirmed Bane's knitting was a reference to her.

Which 1993 Batman comic storyline, in which Bane breaks Batman's back, inspired The Dark Knight Rises?

Knightfall's defining moment returns on screen: Bane beats an out-of-practice Batman, cripples his back and leaves him to rot in a faraway prison.

Which 1999 Batman storyline about a Gotham cut off from the world influenced The Dark Knight Rises?

No Man's Land follows an earthquake that leaves Gotham evacuated, abandoned by the government and overrun by gangs, much as Bane's bombs leave the film's city with a single bridge.

Which villain did studio executives want for The Dark Knight Rises before Nolan settled on Bane?

The Riddler was the obvious choice, studio executives said at The Dark Knight's premiere, and they wanted Leonardo DiCaprio to play him; Nolan picked Bane for his physical threat instead.

Which film did David S. Goyer pitch while stuck on The Dark Knight Rises?

Man of Steel started as a distraction: stuck on the third Batman story, Goyer told Nolan how he would approach Superman, and Nolan liked it enough to take it to the studio.

Which actress said she was told she was 'too urban' to audition for The Dark Knight Rises?

Zoë Kravitz said the remark probably came from a casting office rather than from Nolan himself, and a decade later she played Catwoman in The Batman.

Where did The Dark Knight Rises begin filming, shooting the land above Bane's prison?

Jodhpur, India, was picked because its forbidding landscape added to the prison's desolation, and filming began beneath the city's Mehrangarh Fort.

Under what fake title did The Dark Knight Rises shoot on location to keep a low profile?

Magnus Rex repeated a trick that had already failed once: The Dark Knight shot in Chicago as Rory's First Kiss, and the city's press swiftly unmasked it.

Which NFL team's players appear as the Gotham Rogues in The Dark Knight Rises?

Pittsburgh Steelers stars played the Rogues at their own Heinz Field, in the team's black and gold, before more than 11,000 extras, as Bane's explosions stop the game and kill Gotham's mayor.

Which Batman Begins villain presides over Bane's show trials in The Dark Knight Rises?

The Scarecrow, Cillian Murphy's Jonathan Crane, returns for a third film as the judge before whom Gotham's rich and powerful are dragged from their homes and sentenced.

Which Manhattan building stands in for Wayne Enterprises headquarters in The Dark Knight Rises?

Trump Tower moved Wayne Enterprises out of Chicago, its home in the first two films: Nolan said he wanted more of the city that inspired Gotham in a finale he called more about Gotham than the others.

In which country is the waterfall that hides the Batcave entrance in The Dark Knight Rises?

Wales supplied it: at the end of the film, John Blake finds the cave behind Sgwd Henrhyd, the tallest waterfall in the south of the country.

Which cinematographer shot much of The Dark Knight Rises on IMAX film cameras?

Wally Pfister shot at least an hour of it in IMAX, unprecedented for a studio feature, and skipped the usual digital intermediate so that the filmed image was manipulated less.

Why did The Dark Knight Rises avoid IMAX cameras for most of its dialogue scenes?

They are too noisy: IMAX cameras are so loud that any dialogue shot on them has to be dubbed afterwards, so quieter cameras handled most of the talking.

Which format did Christopher Nolan decline to use for The Dark Knight Rises?

3-D was out: Nolan said the film's future lay in IMAX instead, and he put the effort into image quality and scale.

What is Batman's new flying vehicle called in The Dark Knight Rises?

The Bat borrowed its looks from the Harrier, the Osprey and the Apache but never flew: the crew hung it from wires, cranes and helicopters or drove it on a hydraulic rig.

In The Dark Knight Rises, what does Bane's mask supply him with?

An analgesic gas flows through it: unlike Batman's mask, Bane's hides nothing, and exists to hold the pain of an old injury just low enough for him to function.

Bane's coat in The Dark Knight Rises blends a Swedish army jacket with which other garment?

A French Revolution frock coat gave Bane the look Lindy Hemming wanted, a cross between a dictator and a revolutionary, though she struggled to find a Los Angeles tailor who could work in shearling.

How many separate pieces made up the Batsuit in The Dark Knight Rises?

110 pieces went into every Batsuit, and each one had to be replicated dozens of times over the shoot; the cowl was sculpted from a cast of Christian Bale's own head.

What idea shaped the new Batcave set in The Dark Knight Rises?

Flooding it so equipment rises from water kept everything hidden: the cave looks empty until a button sends up cubes holding the Batsuit and a supercomputer.

What is the underground prison where Bane leaves Bruce Wayne called in The Dark Knight Rises?

The Pit has one way out, a sheer vertical shaft to the surface, and the crew built it for real: the taller of two shaft sets at Cardington stood 120 feet high.

Who composed the score for The Dark Knight Rises?

Hans Zimmer scored it without James Newton Howard, his partner on the first two films, and told the orchestra to unlearn its training and play Bane's music like a primeval drum circle.

What phrase is chanted throughout the score of The Dark Knight Rises?

Deshi Basara is sung by thousands of fans: the composer invited people to record the chant online and layered their voices into the score.

Which future Top Gun: Maverick star plays a stock trader in The Dark Knight Rises?

Glen Powell auditioned several times for the tiny part, and said Nolan taking a chance on him felt like validation at a time when nothing else was going on in his career.

Which hashtag did fans decode from the chanting on The Dark Knight Rises' official website?

#TheFireRises was hidden in the visual spectrum of the audio file, and each tweet of it uncovered the site's black page pixel by pixel until the first official image of Bane appeared.

Which film's IMAX prints carried The Dark Knight Rises' six-minute prologue?

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol carried it about seven months before release, but only on 70mm IMAX film prints, so fans had to hunt down one of the few such screens.

Which fictional physicist appeared in fake 'CIA documents' sent to magazines to promote The Dark Knight Rises?

Dr. Leonid Pavel turned out to be a character from the prologue: the documents set up the film's opening scene, in which Bane snatches the scientist from a CIA plane in mid-air.

Which Batman Begins star returns for a cameo as Ra's al Ghul in The Dark Knight Rises?

Liam Neeson returns briefly as Bruce's old mentor, and Josh Pence plays him as a young man, because the whole plot is his legacy: Bane has come to finish his plan to destroy Gotham.

Which actor plays Bruce Wayne's butler Alfred in The Dark Knight Rises?

Michael Caine's Alfred walks out on Bruce midway through the film, resigning in a failed attempt to stop him from becoming Batman again.

Which Wayne Enterprises project does Bane turn into a bomb in The Dark Knight Rises?

A fusion reactor was Bruce's clean-energy project, shut down once he learned its core could be made into a weapon, which is exactly what Bane's captive scientist is forced to do.

Which company made the tie-in mobile game released on the film's opening day?

Its combat was inspired by the Arkham games; Metacritic averaged it at 64.

Which city's Lincoln Square cinema hosted the world premiere of The Dark Knight Rises in July 2012?

New York rolled out the carpet four days before release; after the shooting at a screening in Aurora, Colorado, Warner Bros. called off the premieres planned for Paris, Mexico and Japan.

Which film's opening-weekend record did The Dark Knight Rises fall short of in July 2012?

The Avengers had opened to a record $207.4 million that May. Analysts tipped the Batman finale for as much as $198 million, but it took $160.9 million.

In The Dark Knight Rises, what does cat burglar Selina Kyle steal from Bruce Wayne's safe at the start?

His mother's pearl necklace is only a cover: disguised as a maid at a Wayne Manor banquet, Selina was really there to lift Bruce's fingerprints from the safe for his business rival.

What does Commissioner Gordon find mysteriously repaired at the end of The Dark Knight Rises?

The Bat-Signal, whole again, is Gordon's hint that his friend survived; Lucius Fox gets his own clue when he learns the supposedly broken autopilot had quietly been fixed.

In which category did The Dark Knight Rises earn its only BAFTA nomination?

The Special Visual Effects award went to Life of Pi instead. Nolan preferred real stunts to digital ones: for the opening hijack, four stuntmen really dropped from one plane onto another over Scotland.

Which Game of Thrones actor plays the CIA agent whose scene with Bane in The Dark Knight Rises became the 'Baneposting' meme?

Aidan Gillen's agent is never named on screen. 4chan users seized on his stilted exchange with the masked prisoner, 'You're a big guy' and 'For you', and have been parodying it ever since.

In which Italian city does Alfred spot Bruce and Selina at the end of The Dark Knight Rises?

Florence is where Alfred said he spent his holidays, hoping to look across a café and see Bruce settled and happy; in the final scene that fantasy comes true, sealed with nothing more than a smile.

What does Wayne Manor become after Bruce is presumed dead in The Dark Knight Rises?

An orphanage moves in once Bruce's will is read and the rest of his estate goes to Alfred, but the manor's biggest secret gets a new owner: a bag of coordinates leads John Blake to the cave beneath it.

Why did Christian Bale turn down a fourth Batman film after The Dark Knight Rises?

To honour the plan for a trilogy: Bale said Nolan had always meant to stop at three, so when the studio came asking for a No. 4 he refused, calling a fourth film overindulgent.