Holy Cow, a Batman post

This week saw me kicking it old school by using my feet and buying tickets in person. What tickets did I buy you ask, well at least I hear that in my head. Anyway tickets have now been bought for the opening day's release of The Dark Knight Rises, billed as the epic conclusion to Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy.

Latest billboard advert in Time Square, New York

Now I am a rather massive fan of Batman so naturally the 20th July can’t come soon enough and warranted booking time off work so I can watch as much Batman as possible before the screening. For such a scenario I recommend a pasta bowl, a box of coco pops and at least a 4 pinter of milk (see below). Running order should be something like Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, with selected episodes of Batman: The Animated Series thrown in for a truly sickening day of Batman. I am disregarding Batman Forever (now known as Batman until Christmas) and Batman and Robin for obvious reasons.

Plot details are, thankfully, still under wraps but The Dark Knight Rises will see Batman taking on a new foe in the imposing shape of Bane, portrayed by one of the rising stars of British cinema Tom Hardy. There is also room for Selina Kyle, with Anne Hathaway taking over the claws from Michelle Pfeiffer as well as Joseph Gordon- Levitt in a cop role with very little details attached at the moment. All the usual cast return too except those who didn’t quite make it through The Dark Knight. However I am pleased to announce that there is a special cameo by the supposedly fallen white knight, Harvey Dent!!!!!

Now for anyone who followed the build up to The Dark Knight, the viral campaign leading up to the release of that film was amazing. Using the tagline ‘Why so serious?’ to promote Harvey Dent, websites were then vandalised to slowly reveal the first image of Heath Ledger’s Joker. A couple of months later, a worldwide scavenger hunt was launched where fans were given clues to take pictures of their findings. This led to audio of the Joker and eventually tickets to screenings of the prologue found at the start of the Dark Knight. Now the viral campaign for The Dark Knight Rises hasn’t been on the same scale as for its predecessor, however in the last few weeks there has been small bursts of really cool marketing. To launch the new trailer, worldwide locations were posted on the film’s website and fans were told to go and find graffiti marks in these locations to reveal a frame of the trailer, one of which could be found in Digbeth!!! In the past couple of days documents highlighting the Harvey Dent Act as well as clippings from the Gotham Observer have raised the excitement levels just that little bit more.

Due to the success of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, Chris Nolan and his team have a ridiculously tough ask in matching the expectations of the fans as well as matching the high standard of the first two. However press reports from an early screening of the film have described it as ‘magnificent’ and the trailers certainly seem to suggest that it can stand toe to toe with the first two films to make this, arguably, the best trilogy ever.

All in all I suggest you go watch all the trailers, stick on as much Hans Zimmer music you can get your hands on, including the Going for Gold theme tune, and practice your growling voice. Avoid any sort of social interaction from around the 18^th July as well: a) you don’t want someone spoiling it for you b) the isolation will make you think you are actually Batman!!! And finally treat yourself to watching this masterpiece in the format it deserves, IMAX….you will not be disappointed.

PS. For this week’s Bryan Cranston tenuous link, Bryan actually voices Commissioner Gordon in Batman: Year One. And I promise I will eventually do a Breaking Bad blog.