All language subtitles for Icons.Unearthed.S06E06.In.Heaths.Shadow.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-BTN_track4_[eng]

Having earned
$373 million at the box office,

Batman Beginshad reignited the franchise,

- making fans and especially,
the studio, very happy.
-

If you make them a lot of money,

they will give you
a lot of leeway.

But Hollywood
director, Chris Nolan,
topped his first effort.

I don't know what he ate
in between Batman Begins
and Dark Knight,

but he came back to Dark Knight
with a vengeance.

- The sequel
would be bigger.
- Much much bigger.

Filled with
death-defying
practical effects.

I mean, Heath said
he was a nervous wreck.

Pushing the crew
to the brink
of what's possible.

Several stuntmen
tried out riding it.
It didn't work.

But almost seemingly
from the inception,
they hit a snag.

She wanted to do other parts
and move on with her career.

So, with a new
leading lady...

Are you all right?

Let's not do that again.

...and a teenage
heart-throb for a villain...

Ledger actually getting cast
was hugely,
hugely controversial.

No one thought
that guy was the guy.

...would Chris be forced
to compromise his vision?

Chris isn't gonna do it
the easy way.

-
- And sadly,
The Dark Knight still had one

very dark chapter
yet to play out.

Oh, man.

Devastated, yeah.

It felt like a cavern
had just kind of opened up
in the middle of the earth.

For The Dark Knight,Christopher Nolan's idea
of who Batman was

continued to morph and evolve.

One film into the trilogy,

the look and sound of Batman
had already changed.

What the hell are you?

-
- I'm Batman.

Its director
was evolving too,

into an action
blockbuster filmmaker.

I saw him grow
and grow and grow.

You know, before Batman Begins,

you know, Chris hadn't done
an action film.

But having
knocked it out of the park
with Batman Begins,

he was prepared
to kick it up a notch.

Thing with Chris is that
he likes to start with reality

baked in to start with
as much as possible.

Even if it's just reference,
I think he's warm to CGI,

but push comes to shove,
he'd still rather
do stuff for real.

And with
a real big budget,
Chris Nolan was dreaming big.

And it was
Christopher Corbould's job

to make Chris Nolan's
real big dreams come true.

I said to Chris,
"You know, this is much bigger
than the last one."

In the script,
there were motorcycle stunts,
truck stunts

and even blowing up a hospital.

He sort of looked at me
a bit strange and said,

"I thought you'd blown up
a building before?"

I said, "No.
What I actually said was,
'I want to blow up a building.'"

Now,
Chris had his chance.

All he had to do
was find a building.

In the meantime,
he also had to figure out

how to flip a 60-foot truck
end-over-end.

I wasn't absolutely sure
we could do that.

However impossible,
flipping a truck
might still be easier

than saying no
to Christopher Nolan.

There's no compromise
with Chris.

But this Chris
had a different stance
on compromise.

[Corbould] I went to Chris
one day and said,

"Look, instead of a
60-foot 18-wheeler,

is there any chance we could
make it a bit shorter?"

He sort of looked
at me and said,

"I don't think
it'd be as good."

So, uh, I said to him,
"Now, where are you
gonna film this?"

Thinking he'd say,
"Oh, some derelict site."

He said, "No, I wanna shoot it
in LaSalle Street."

Which is the banking district
of Chicago.

Chris isn't gonna do it
the easy way.

Chris is gonna do it
the best way for the movie.

For the other Chris,
that meant no margin for error.

So, while Chris Corbould
began losing sleep
over how to flip a truck...

Oh, no.

...his team
began developing
the film's new vehicle.

The bike or Batpod,
as we call it.

Designed to be
an extension of the Tumbler,

its fat wheel design,
while futuristic and stylish,
came with one big drawback.

Several stuntmen
tried out riding it,

and most of them said,
"You know, this is not my gig."

Those wheels were so far apart
and so wide,

it was just like
another beast entirely,
you know.

It would spit anybody off.
It's not a matter of

if you're gonna lay it down,
it's when you're gonna
lay it down.

Fortunately,
for Chris Nolan...

There was one person
in the world who could ride
the goddamn thing then.

No, not Batman.

A Frenchman.

A great French stunt rider
called Jean-Pierre Goy.

[Otero] He could ride that
thing. The initial learning
curve was pretty steep.

[Corbould] And he
practiced with it.

And, you know, within a day,

I watched him going down
the road standing up
on the saddle.

So I thought,
yeah, that's the guy.

With a stunt driver secured,
a second safety issue emerged.

You know, there's no mud guards
on this bike

and he's got a cape
out of the back.

And I was worried
that the cape was gonna
get caught up in the wheel.

So Chris
had to speak up.

I said, "Chris,
I'm really worried."

I'm really worried
that he's gonna catch up.

Thankfully,
the usually uncompromising
Chris Nolan had a solution.

So we started coming out
with all these ideas.

Including one design
that would've had Batman

looking like a tourist
with this Batpack.

Once he got on it,
his cape sucked up
into a backpack.

So it got it out of the way.

But hold on.
This isn't PAC-MAN.

This is Batman.
The Caped Crusader.

So Chris decided
to test the bike
with the cape on.

And as soon as he took off,
the cape just
floated into the air

and never looked like
it was gonna get
anywhere near the wheel.

It was quite bizarre.
So I had to go cap in hand
to Chris and say, "Look,

I might have made
a mistake there, Chris.
It absolutely looks fantastic."

And he had that little grin
that he gives me when, uh,

he's thinking,
"Yeah, I knew I was right."

With the Batpod
tested and ready,

production on The Dark Knightbegan in Chicago April, 2007.

And running the set
was first AD, Nilo Otero.

The first thing we shot,
we shot the bank robbery.

Being brand new
to Nolan's crew,

the stakes for Nilo
couldn't have been higher.

[Otero] I got set up outside.

We're shooting.

The school bus
has gone through the wall

and is now pulling away
as all the police cars come up.

It's a shot that, you know,

you've got a mile here this
and roll school buses

and police cars
coming the other way.

And here we go. Ready and...

"Nilo?" "Yeah?"

"There's a fire
in the building behind us."

- "What?"
-

Obstruction ahead!
Obstruction ahead!

They said, "We're gonna need
to clear the street."

And for a first AD
like Nilo Otero,

- the word failure
isn't in his vocabulary.
- No.

But there was
another word
he was eager to deploy.

And I said,
"I can clear this street
with one word."

That word is "action."

And he looked at me
and he smiled.

And I thought my jokes were bad.

And from that point on,

I think he really said,
"This might be a guy
I can work with."

While
Christopher Nolan was getting
his first look at his new AD.

The bank heist scene
is the audience's first look

at The Dark Knight'snew face of evil.

So why do they
call him The Joker?

I heard he wears makeup.

As The Joker
is unmasked,
a revolutionary new look

for Batman's
most popular villain
is unveiled for the first time.

How about a magic trick?

Marking the end
of a long road
for the man who created it.

Ah, it's gone.

It was like an evolution.

They kind of know
where they want to go,

but they expect you to bring
something to the table too.

So all together,
it's like a journey.

A journey fraught
with high expectations.

You can't really overstate

what a huge impression

that Nicholson
playing The Joker had.

So John Caglione Jr. was
tasked with finding a look

that was fresh yet familiar.

[Caglione] When we first started
to do the test,

I was thinking like
a makeup artist.

It looked too clean.

It looked too like
a makeup artist
was designing this thing.

And we started to just
play around with ideas.

Christopher Nolan,
in his great directing style,

brought in some paintings
of Francis Bacon

that are very dreary and loose
and blurry images.

It was just an impression
of what the makeup could be.

That kind of blurry, lived in,
cracked and creviced look.

In developing
the look of the Joker,

John had an ingenious idea
that would help Heath
develop his character.

I had Heath do his own makeup,
just so that he could feel like

he is The Joker
and he does his own makeup.

If the actor looks in the mirror
and can believe it,

then I've done my job.

And with
that collaboration,
came small discoveries.

[Caglione] And one takeaway that we found
with him doing his makeup,

was that he got makeup
on his fingers.

So that's something that we
incorporated into the makeup

when he's not
wearing his gloves.

It was a collaboration
that brought a sense of realism

to an otherwise
over the top character.

Throughout the picture,
it's evolving,
it's constantly changing.

And Heath and I are talking
in the makeup room,

"Maybe we could do
something different here."

It was like
a dance in the chair.
It really was.

Basically four or five colors.

Well, hello, beautiful.

While Heath Ledger
was trying hard to stand out,

Maggie Gyllenhaal
was trying to fit in.

New Rachel Dawes.

She was perfect for the part,
I thought.

[Greenberger] She brought her all.
She was glamorous.

She was, you know...
had some serious weight
behind her.

Come on, Harvey,
you're Gotham's DA.

You're not getting shot at,
you're not doing your job right.

And then you add Aaron Eckhart
as the tragic figure,
Harvey Dent.

Handsome, charismatic
Harvey Dent.

It's no wonder
that Billy Dee Williams

was so keen on playing
Two-Face/Harvey Dent.

As a character,
it's a good one.

If you look at
The Dark Knight narratively,

he's the centerpiece
of the whole thing.

He's the linchpin
for the whole narrative.

The legal crusader,
dealing with the politics
with Bruce Wayne.

Harvey Dent,
the man of the hour.

Handsome dude
is trying to take my girl
and buying me a campaign.

I believe in Harvey Dent.

Meanwhile,
Morgan Freeman

would be reprising his role
as Lucius Fox.

Wouldn't want the trust fund
to run out now, would we?

And Gary Oldman
was back and with a raise.

Commissioner Gordon.

[Henderson] Him and Morgan Freeman,

anchor this whole thing
in a believability

that really sells
this grounded realism.

That's how you're able
to buy The Joker

and buy Two-Face
and buy all this stuff.

Just when it seemed
like everything
was coming together

on the set of the Dark Knight.

Good evening. I'm Mike Engel
and this is a special edition
of Gotham tonight.

The production was hit
with some devastating news.

Someone working
on The Dark Knight...

was killed.

It was
an off set accident.

It happened at Chris Corbould's
special effects facility.

It sent shock waves
through the production.

But for Chris Corbould,
the accident happened
in his department.

No. I don't wanna relive that.

It was sad, it was an accident
and I don't wanna go there.

A simple test shoot
for a practical effect
involving the Tumbler

had ended in the tragic death
of New Zealander,
Conway Wickliffe.

There was a vehicle
traveling with it.

It was less than
ten miles an hour,

with a guy with his iPhone
shooting it,
just to be able to show Chris.

He leans out the window.

For whatever reason,
the driver hit the brakes.

Within the door frame,
his neck hit the...

And it was just a freak--
Broke his neck,
he died, in an instant.

Production on
The Dark Knightstruggled to continue

after a crew member's
untimely passing.

You pick up the paper,
the British tabloids, you know,

"Death on Dark Knight set!"

And while an inquest
would eventually find Nolan's

special effects supervisor
not guilty of any wrongdoing...

It was what it was,
which was a really sad accident,

of a freakish nature.

The death had left
a mark that would be
hard to shake off.

That was a shockwave
through the production.

For newcomer
Monique Gabriela Curnen,

who'd just come on
to the picture,

it was a very somber start.

Just...

the worst possible scenario.

You know, my hat goes off
to all stunt people
making their living like this.

However the cast
and crew's ability

to come together under
such tragic circumstances,

made refocusing on the movie
a little easier.

There's no making up
for someone's absence.

But Chris is just
such a pro in terms
of dealing with things.

I really felt like
I was stepping into
a well-oiled machine.

You felt the respect
for the material

in the way people
showed up for work,

and that made the play
fun and easy.

And no one was playing
more than Heath Ledger,

who, transformed by the makeup,
was taking the role

of the Joker
in a whole new direction.

I don't want
to kill you.

What would I do without you?

Just thrilling to watch someone
just go there so completely.

And I just had a sense
that it was gonna be exciting

and that it was going to bring
new levels to this character.

He's having
the time of his life.

- [Batman grunting]
-

There were times where he'd say,
"John," you know,
"help me with my lines."

And he had
everyone's lines memorized,

I mean, he had a great like
sense of memory.

And I would just say,
"Okay, I'll do this line."

"Bullshit, bullshit.
Your line."

And he would
start cracking up.

That's the way it went
in the makeup trailer.

It was just like
we had a lot of fun.

Even old hands
were taken aback
by this new Joker.

Michael Caine, he had not seen
Heath in that makeup

and then he walks in
off the elevator in that scene.

We made it.

It really bothered him,
the makeup.

[Caglione] That's good.

Kinda did my job
a little bit there.

Oh, excuse me. I wanna drive.

Of course,
part of the fun for Heath

was getting
to flip the big rig.

I like this job.

Which, if you recall.

I wasn't absolutely sure
we could do that.

But after many months
of thinking of a safe way
to do it and testing it out,

this Chris was able
to tell that Chris.

Game's on, you know,
we can do it.

Well,
if they were really doing it,

they would need
a badass stunt driver.

Sorry, Heath.

Jim Wilkey was the stunt driver.

Hey, you wait like
everybody else, pal.

A veteran
of more than 130 stunts,

Jim was hardly
quaking in his boots
when he signed up for the job.

It was just another movie
when I went in there.

You know, I'm going, "Oh, okay."

The one who
was nervous, was Chris.

Not that Chris, this Chris.

Nerve-racking night that.
I lost a lot of sleep
over that shot.

I was down at the start
of where the truck was starting.

Making sure that stunt guy
was strapped in properly.

Because safety,
now more than ever,
was paramount.

And the theory was,

it was 11-foot long slug,
they call it,

about half way back
on the trailer.

- And what happens is
that slug's blown out...
-

...and it then, the force of it,
blows the whole rig up and over.

And the idea was
that for the spike
on the front of the tractor

to dig in and just
help the trailer
to kind of alley-oop over.

Of course,
that's just a theory.

We don't know
what'll happen.

We don't know if the trailer's
gonna go this way, that way.

Had absolutely no idea.

Because
Even though practice
looked good,

doing it at a car park
at low speed,

was not how
The Joker would roll
or where he would roll.

This street was more or less
the same width as the truck.

So if it had gone
off course a little bit,

it'd been through
the Chase Manhattan Bank.

Which had
some people in City Hall
feeling kind of nervous.

Certainly everybody had
a little concern about it.

But after a meeting
with the city,

the mayor gave
full support to the film,

which was, you know, critical.

Meanwhile,
as Chris was scoping
the truck flip,

I started walking
down LaSalle street.

he discovered
a big problem
right under his nose,

or rather, feet.

There's a whole street
of manhole covers.

They were utilities,
they were bank vaults.

We only found two spots
in the whole street,

which gave us enough room,
you know, like a 50 yard bit,
where we could...

It would take the weight
of the piston coming down.

Jim had just 50 yards
and one shot.

One of the IMAX cameras
was sitting right on the ground

and basically,
I had to pitch the truck

right into that camera lens,
in a precise spot.

And there's never gonna be
a second take for that.

That was a one shot deal.

And no pressure there,
right?

The stakes
were so high,
even off the clock actors

were enticed
out of their hotel suites.

Ooh, he wanna play. Come on.

I went to go
kind of check it out.

That was the big deal that night
to see this thing happen.

'Cause I had heard that,
you know, it was gonna be
pretty impressive and massive.

But before
they could roll cameras,

there was a ceremonial
passing of the wigs.

[Wilkey] For a multimillion dollar
budgeted production,

they only had one wig
for The Joker.

So we would have to swap the wig
back and forth.

Of course,
having Heath
hanging around,

was pretty standard
for the stunt crew.

He loved to hang out
with the stunt guys.

He'd be bebopping around
in his board shorts.

On his skateboard
and laughing it up
with the stunt guys.

But while Heath
and the stunt guys
got a few last laughs in,

Chris put the final touches
on the truck.

We started loading up
the nitrogen cannons

and I got on the radio and said,
"Right, Chris,
we're ready to go now."

The button that I have to hit
is right here.

So I'm sitting here
kind of like I am now,
you know, my hands.

Said, "You're ready?"
I said, "Yeah, let's do it."
You know, so...

Called action and we set it off,
you know, running down the road.

Okay, rack 'em up.

Away we went.

I won't say that I wasn't
a little apprehensive.

I watched it
and watched it and watched it
and I go,

"No, I just can't watch this."

I turned away
and I was listening
for the sound it was gonna make.

And then loud applause,

where it hadn't
gone through a bank.

-
- Thankfully,
for Chris Corbould

and for Chris Nolan.

The truck just goes...

Cinematic!

We're all jumping up and down.

But unfortunately,
it also did a bit more
to Jim's head.

Trailer hit
and then the cab hit.

And then the cab
kind of comes back up
and slams down the second time.

Kind of a double whacker,
you know.

It was that second slam
that kind of, rung my bell,
you know.

It was like, bam
and then, whack.

Over the sound
of his own bell
ringing in his ears,

Jim heard the applause.

But he really wasn't
in any shape to take a bow.

I kind of wasn't quite sure
where I was at.

And apparently,
I just turned around

and started wandering off
down LaSalle Street.

Hey, I was a little bit goofy
for a few minutes.

So,
was the final shot
worth the concussion?

Oh, it was really cool. Yeah.
I couldn't believe it.
It was like, you know, wow.

The truck flip proved
Chris and his crew

could really
upend expectations,

except there was
one minor problem.

The next morning,
Chris was a little bit upset

that somebody had photographed
on their phone,

the whole truck going over
out of a 20-story building,
and they put it on the internet.

The stunt
had gone viral.

And there was nothing
either Chris could do about it.

Chris wants to control
every image in the movie.
Thanks very much.

His special
effects supervisor

seemed almost pleased
by the leak.

Chris, everybody now
is gonna know that
it's been done for real.

And it's not a cheat,
it's not a model.

It's not CG
and it's not gonna stop
one single person

from coming to see it
in the cinema.

So I'm well over the moon
with that.

So, Nolan and
his team had successfully
flipped a 60-foot truck.

Is there any chance we could
make it a bit shorter?

Nope
Not one foot shorter.

For the uncompromising Nolan,
his next trick
was to blow up a hospital.

Of course.

That was a little bit
of a head scratcher
to begin with.

That was until
someone in the locations

department had
a brilliant idea.

Find out who's gone out for bids
to demolish their building.

Which resulted
in them finding this place.

[McAllister] The Brach's
candy factory.

And as soon as I saw it,
I'm like, "This is fantastic."

While changing
the facade to look like
a hospital would be easy,

pulling off this
elaborate stunt
would all come down to timing.

You can only
blow up a hospital once.

And for Nolan,
it wasn't enough
just to raise the building,

- this needed to be special.
-

Bombs away
was the order of the day

on the set of the Dark Knight.

Uh, Chris didn't want it
to come down just like
a normal demolition.

- Like a pack of cards.
-

[Corbould] He wanted different.

So, we came up with this scheme
where it went down sideways.

So, it started off on one side
and then collapsed across.

-
- [Corbould] Which Chris
really liked.

The scene called
for Heath to be
right in the line of fire.

But given all that
had happened...

I mean, Heath said
he was a nervous wreck.

He was just like,
"Will I survive this?"

and knowingly,
Chris Corbould
wanted to be extra safe.

I went to Chris and said,
"Look, I don't want Heath
outside of the bus

when the real demolition
goes off."

You know,
the bus was bulletproof.

It had huge great
polycarbonate windows,

the sides were
all armor-plated.

Once he was in there,
he was safe.

So, we came up with the idea
that as he was walking out,

there would be all
cosmetic explosions going off,

then there would be a glitch
and it would stop.

And the first explosion
after he fiddles
with his thing,

was his cue to get in the back
of that bus.

[Corbould] I was in
the back of the bus

and literally
I got hold of him

and yanked him in
and shut the door.

Then once
that door was shut,

was when they pressed the button
for the actual
physical demolition.

One of the last scenes
to be shot

was the one in Hong Kong
where Batman goes

and grabs
the mafia's accountant.

And there'll be
no faking Hong Kong
for Christopher Nolan.

Because Chris wants as much
in camera as possible,

the city streets,
the buildings,
that meant going to Hong Kong.

And because Chris
liked to keep things real,

the rescue involved...

[Bennett] A very real
CIA program called Skyhook

designed to rescue downed pilots
behind enemy lines.

The person in trouble
releases a balloon,

and then an airplane comes by,
hooks the balloon in mid-air
without ever stopping.

We wanted to shoot
at the top of the IFC,

which, at the time,
was the tallest building
in Hong Kong.

Unfortunately
the scale of the shoot

was too tall and order
for local fixers to organize.

Anyone that's been to Hong Kong,
they know it's very dense.

However, it became
an even bigger problem
for authorities

once word got out
that Batman was in town.

[McAllister] By the time
we came to shoot,

we had hundreds of people
packed into this neighborhood.

How do we function
in this situation?

And finally,
they sent us police.

Police though,
were no match
for the heaving masses.

[McAllister] We had to get
Christian Bale to the set.

It meant creating a scrum
around Christian Bale
to walk him.

The governmental
red tape continued to make
things difficult for the crew.

[McAllister] We shot the C-130
flying over the harbor.

There was quite a bit of legwork
to get that achieved.
Just to do the low pass.

Ultimately
Chris had to concede
this scene's finishing touches

couldn't be performed
to his standard, on-location.

I don't wanna give secrets away
on how things were done,

but we did not pull somebody
out of a building.

It was the magic of filmmaking.

But the magic
had come to an end

and when filming
finally wrapped,

the crew gave Heath Ledger
a standing ovation.

This exciting,
talented young actor,

had given The Joker
everything he had.

I said goodbye to him
and it was like

one of the most
amazing performances

I've ever seen in my life
and, uh,

you're a dedicated,
hard-working guy

and I wanna
see you down the line.

But Nilo
would never get to see
Heath Ledger down the line.

[Caglione] Oh, man.

Yeah. That was--
Uh...

Man.

I was at home.

Suddenly, uh, people were
getting messages
on their phones.

The phone rings
and Heath is dead.

We're gonna turn now
to the death of an accomplished,
young actor.

Late today, the body of one time
Oscar nominee, Heath Ledger,
was found in New York.

I mean, it's like inexplicable

that someone so present
could just be gone that quickly.

Yeah, I...

That was a very hard day.
That was a really hard day.

I had heard from quite
a few people involved in it too

that, um, Bale in particular,
took it really, really hard.

It felt like,
kind of like a cavern

had just kind of opened up
in the middle of the earth.

For me, it was
a hugely personal loss
and it made me angry.

As it always does
when a young person dies.

An absolute tragedy.

Uh, he had overdosed
on sleeping pills.

The inevitable
media speculation
over Ledger's drug use

only worsened
The Dark Knight team's anguish.

[Otero] Did he have drug issues?

Uh, yeah, he had
prescription drug issues

dating back
to busting up his body

when he was 14-year old
go-kart racer
in Australia, okay.

He originally used them
to kill pain.

To be honest with you,
I am a recovering alcoholic.

So, Heath and I
would once in a while
talk about sobriety.

And we had some conversations
in the chair

about how I found mine
and he was finding his,

and so it really came
as a complete shock to me.

In post-production,
editors were busy shaping

what would now be
the actor's legacy performance.

Heath's performance was amazing.

Sad that he never got to see it.

Knowing what went into
that performance

and knowing how much he cared
about what he was doing

and the investment he made,

there's always this
kind of melancholic twinge
to that movie.

So, they're doing this junket
after his death.

You know, usually these
take place in a hotel

and you're sitting in a hallway
and then go into whatever room
they have the camera set up in.

And every room that I went into
just had this pall.

Like the people
filming it were sad,

the people doing the interviews
were sad,
the reporters were sad.

The emotions
surrounding the film,

made the London premiere
a bittersweet event.

There's a lot of excitement here
and that's really gratifying.

The performance
was so convincing,

it would eventually
lead to speculation

the character had got inside
the mind of the actor.

No, there was
no darkness at all. Nah.

He was a happy guy.

There was a light everywhere
where that guy went.

And there was
that very light
that shone on audiences

who flocked to witness
Ledger's defining last word
on The Joker.

It actually crosses
the billion dollar threshold,
which is a huge deal.

The Dark Knight is not only
one of the greatest
comic book movies ever made,

it's one of the greatest movies
ever made.

It was a masterpiece
on every level.

Hollywood agreed
and in 2009, Heath Ledger

posthumously made history
at the 81st Academy Awards.

And the Oscar goes to...

Heath Ledger inThe Dark Knight.

Becoming the first
actor to win an Oscar

for portraying
a comic book character.

I thought it was well deserved,
but it's just sad
he wasn't there, you know.

Having that recognition

and recognizing how special
he was as an actor,

there was at least some good
in the face of the sadness.

The biggest
superhero movie ever,
demanded an encore.

But following
Heath Ledger's death,

Warner's needed
to tread carefully.

[Busch] Obviously
you cannot use Joker.

You cannot recast that role.
You just can't.

Heath's death certainly forced
Nolan and company
to recalibrate things.

You had to change everything.
You just couldn't go forward
the same way.

You know, what do you do?

The loss
of Heath Ledger

had left a hole
in Nolan's heart

and a hole in his trilogy.

Would the director and his star
be willing
and able to continue?

Before that could be confirmed,

Nolan began work on something
a long way from Batman.

- What? Inception?
- Inception.

Listen, if you're gonna
perform inception,
you need imagination.

Nolan's cerebral epic.

What were they smoking
when they wrote that script?

Ironically,
the next installment of Batman,

had some of its beginnings
in this very film,

thanks to its stars.

I thought you might
be missing me.

Marion Cotillard
and Joseph Gordon-Levitt

were destined to appear
in The Dark Knight Rises.

- What's your name, son?
- Blake, Sir.

Nolan needed
another villain
to throw at Batman

and if you're thinking, Bane,

well, the bane
of Bane's creator,
Chuck Dixon's existence

was the character's portrayal
in Batman and Robin.

Gotham observatory, Bane.
And step on it.

He looked like our Bane,
but he wasn't our Bane.

[Dixon] The notice
I got was that
they were gonna treat him

like a mastermind,
like an intellect.

Closer to the
comic book version.

And in keeping with
Nolan's quest
for keeping it real,

the character is based
on a real life figure.

That would be
former North Korean dictator,
Kim Jong Il.

In North Korea,
you could be imprisoned
for a relative's crimes.

So, if they couldn't catch
your brother,
you served his time.

And I thought,
well, what would it be like
if this character's father

was a criminal
in the country where they were

and they couldn't catch him?

Bane is your child.

And so, this poor kid
is put in prison.

And then I thought,
well, wait a minute,
what if he was born in prison?

How horrible a life
would that be?

You merely adopted the dark.

I was born in it.

When
Chuck Dixon conjured Bane
for the DC series, Nightfall,

he had to wrestle with many
of the same questions
Christopher Nolan did.

For the whole thing to work,
the fans had to respond to him
and relate to him.

And it worked out perfectly
because he was a product
of childhood trauma.

The same way Batman is a product
of childhood trauma.

So they really worked as
a perfect mirror image villain.

-
- And this time,

Bane wouldn't be created
in a lab,

but rather as in
the comic book,

on the mean streets
of South America.

[Dixon] He's gonna be a prisoner
on an island
called Santa Prisca.

Which is a made up island.

He would eventually
be addicted to venom.

Which was a, uh, sort of,
a super steroid narcotic.

And that would be his flaw.

Having been
raised in prison

and haunted by
a bat like creature
in his nightmares,

Bane saw Batman
as his tormentor made flesh.

Bane's size made him
a perfect fit

for what Nolan needed
his new villain to be.

Something The Joker never was.

The Joker and Two-Face,

neither one really presented
much of a physical challenge.

A fight between
Batman and The Joker
is not a long fight.

A fight between Batman and Bane
is an epic every time.

And I think Chris needed
to challenge Batman physically.

[Bane] You fight like
a younger man

with nothing held back.

And while
it wasn't easy
to find an actor

that was equal part
brute force and intellect,

once again Nolan
drew on the cast
from Inception.

They cast Tom Hardy
and I thought, well,
that guy's terrific.

There's very few
Hollywood actors

who I would be afraid
to meet in a dark alley.

Tom Hardy is a dude
who actually is scary.

If I pull that off,
will you die?

It would be extremely painful.

- You're a big guy.
- For you.

If Bane
was Batman's physical test,

Catwoman would be
his emotional challenge.

He doesn't know how to love.

He lost his parents
when he was a kid.

He has no idea
how to care about anybody.

Come with me.

Producers had chosen
Anne Hathaway

over the likes of Blake Lively,
Natalie Portman,
Eva Green and Kate Mara.

But Anne Hathaway's job
playing Catwoman

was made trickier,
thanks to the rise
of internet fanboy culture,

which responded
with such toxic vitriol

- that it was dubbed--
- "Hathahate."

The main
accusation being--

That she has this veryPrincess Diaries feel to her.

But when you think of Catwoman,

you don't think of bright
and shiny and bubbly
and Disney and princesses.

There was one other
time-honored Batman character
that would feature heavily

in Nolan's last word on Batman.

Chris felt that this is
the final film in the trilogy,

and he wanted to get
the spectacle much bigger.

A character there
from the very beginning:

New York-- I mean, Gotham City.

Gotham really is New York.

Or they
chose it because...

They basically just shot
every corner of Chicago already.

But New York would be
its own challenge to shoot.

Because it's bigger.

And not just the city.

My initial impression
of the script
was that it was massive.

Pushing the limits
of the way that you could tell
a story like that.

He was gonna go all out
to make this huge.

But would Nolan
be all out of luck?

The Big Apple
is a notoriously
difficult place to film.

But New York did have
one geographical advantage.

Because it's an island
which is important
for the story.

In which Bane
isolates the city

by blowing up all but one
of its bridges to the mainland.

Bana putting the city
under siege in a way
we've never seen it before.

But Nolan also
needed New York for something

that only the real Wall Street
could perfectly capture.

-
-

Chris was very attuned
to political
and social dynamics.

It was the age
of Occupy Wall Street

and for perhaps
the first time ever,
Batman was getting political.

This is a radical,
in the political sense,

a revolutionary,
anarchic script.

The powerful will be ripped
from their decadent nests.

His first
assistant director
had concerns.

Was Batman turning red?

You really want to do that?

Are you really gonna make
a commie Batman?

The one-percenters
were now
public enemy number one.

[Otero] People talk about
occupying Wall Street.

They didn't occupy Wall Street.

They occupied a park
near Wall Street.

I occupied Wall Street.

Both outside
and inside
the New York Stock Exchange.

We had to be
super, super careful, you know.

We couldn't touch anything.

Everything had to be removed
and replaced with stuff
that we could break.

And this was
going to be a riot.
One way or another.

When we did our riot there,

there's 600 stunt players
in the street.
That's a real fight.

That's not CG bullshit
in the background.

Hundreds
of performers were needed
for the choreographed fight.

That's pairs, rehearsed,
for three days.

It's all happening
on screen. Big.

[Sneider] New York City,
getting it wrong,
would be just a disaster.

However, some of the bigger
action scenes

allowed Chris to really
flex his filmmaking muscles.

And driving
through the melee,
hoping not to kill anyone,

was stuntman Jim Wilkey.

The Tumblers were
very difficult to see out of.

That was the hardest part.

Trying not to run over
any extras. You know?

But there was
another danger.

One that came from above.

The, uh, flying Bat-deal.

Officially known
as The Bat,
it was the film's new vehicle.

Initially, I was
very disappointed

that Chris had written
into this flying thing.

Because it actually
had to, for real.

I know my guys are good,
but even we can't get
that thing flying.

And he said,
"Well, let's talk about it."

It quickly became apparent
that there was a lot
we could do.

We had a high speed vehicle
that this whole Bat
flying vehicle was mounted on.

Which could drive
along the streets
at 70 miles an hour.

It could tilt both ways.
It could dip down.

Yeah, we probably did about 50%
of the footage in the end.

- But practically--
- [Otero] Just incredible
Just amazing practical work.

Unfortunately,
not all of
the technical challenges

on The Dark Knight Rises

were as easy to overcome.

They didn't understand the mask.

And then the problems
they had with audio

because you couldn't
understand what he was saying.

- [Batman grunts]
- Peace has cost you
your strength.

Do I wish that we could
understand him
a little bit more?

Yes.

- And they shall appear.
- [Dixon] What?

I was like,
"No, this isn't working."

Tom Hardy
wasn't the only one
wrestling with his costume.

[Otero] Christian hated the suit,
Anne hated the suit.

You know,
much of my job is really
trying to persuade millionaires

to just, you know,

one more before
they can take a pee.

That's a lot
of what first AD'ing is.

So it was perhaps
with a full bladder,

that Bruce Wayne
finally found love
with Selina Kyle.

The day that he's happy,
that's the end of Batman.

And Christian Bale
put the final touch
on his portrayal of Batman.

He made the role his own.

Consider me biased,
but I think
he is the best Batman.

Even Anne Hathaway
silenced her critics.

I thought she did a great job.

Cat got your tongue.

That's the whole very essence
of being an actress.

That you can just...
you can play a role.

The journey had
delivered the film's director
to a new place also.

I watched Chris grow from,

not being a rookie
action director,

but semi-limited knowledge
of what could be achieved,

to by the end,
being a master of everything
he did with the action.

And for Chris Corbould,

who had made
the impossible possible

over all three Nolan films...

There were times where I could
have easily walked away
with heads in hands,

but when you realize
what the final result is,
it's all been worth it.

Whether it would
be worth it for Warner's,

would depend on how
The Dark Knight Risescompared to its predecessor.

The Dark Knight Rises
actually beat it.

Which I wasn't sure
was going to be the case

without Harvey Dent
and The Joker.

But it's a testament
to how well receivedThe Dark Knight was,

where everyone's like,
"We have to see the sequel
no matter who's in it."

And despite being
the worst reviewed film
of the trilogy,

Dark Knight Risesrose to gross over
a billion dollars globally,

making it the highest grossing
Batman film to date.

But when Warner Bros. asked
if Christopher Nolan

or Christian Bale
wanted to return,

both men politely declined.

And the studio
was left to wonder,

what did the future
look like for Batman?

Over thirty years ago,

when Michael Uslan
set out to get Batman
on the big screen,

he had one goal in mind.

[Uslan] Go out and make
dark and serious Batman movies.

Nobody's ever seen
a dark and serious
comic book movie before.

Luckily for him,
the studio hired the one man
who shared that vision.

[Wuhl] It's Tim Burton.
He changed everything.

Tim Burton
should receive a royalty

for every Marvel movie,

DC movie,
any kind of comic book movie,

- because it's all him.
- Action!

Tim Burton wanted
to do something

that was dripping in shadows.

That movie changed the way
audiences experienced movies.

Setting in motion
some 25 years of Warner Bros.

struggling to balance
their commercial interests...

McDonald's did not
love our movie.

...with their
artistic ones.

Whenever you make a film,
you wish and hope
and pray it will work.

There is a good one.

And it'll be a financial success
and everything will be happy.

But you can't have 100%.

No one sets out
to make a shitty movie.

For what is Batman?
If not an effort to master
the chaos that sweeps our world.

And when I look back on it,

to think that that agony

resulted ultimately
in Christopher Nolan coming in

to restore the darkness
and dignity to Batman.

It was worth it all.

You still haven't
given up on me.

Never.

[Otero] Batman Beginsrevitalized the franchise.

It was a bubblegum movie
that was taken seriously.

Proving once
and for all...

You could make a serious film
out of that genre.

Christopher Nolan,
setting the fantastical
in a realistic setting,

would become a template
for all modern superhero films.

This is just the beginning.

One thing that Chris always said
is that Batman
isn't a superhero.

He's a normal guy who just has
a few things to help him out.

But as Warner Bros.
expands and reinvents
the Batman mythology,

who knows what the character
might become?

Oh, and incidentally,
Billy Dee finally
got to play Two-Face

in the highly successful
LEGO Batman Movie.

Yes.

- Two-Face.
- We need that door open, baby.

I did finally become Two-Face.

And I always find that
really quite amusing.

From page to screen,
the story of this tortured,
lonely hero,

gripped by a sense of vengeance

with a surprisingly accurate
moral compass,

Batman is a story
we're willing to hear
again and again.

There are literally hundreds
of versions of Batman

and every single one of 'em,
is as equally valid as the next.

Which means the core essence
of the character
is so profoundly,

perfectly realized
that it can survive
all these iterations.

That's the magic of Batman.

Not only
has the character survived,

but he's left an indelible mark
on all who have
come into contact with him.

Batman changed
everything for me.

Changed my entire life
and trajectory of my career.

It was like a dream come true.
Just constantly having fun.

- Just a great experience.
- Complete and utter pleasure.

It was a really great
time in my life

and a wonderful experience.

Never dreamed I'd write
any of the Batman characters.

[Sean Young] I wish my story
could have
turned out differently.

I love Batman.

This is how the ball bounces,
as they say.

Batman's creators,
Bob Kane and Bill Finger,

would no doubt be proud
of the way their character

has jumped off the page
and into people's imaginations.

You can take
a silhouette of Batman,

you take it to any country
in the world,

they're gonna know
what Batman is.

That's astonishing.

And as for
the one man
with a dogged determination

to see his favorite superhero
up on the big screen.

[Uslan] I bought the rights
to Batman in 1979.

I really was turned down
by every single studio

and mini-major in Hollywood.

I was told,
"Michael, you are crazy."

I was told repeatedly,
"This is the worst idea
we ever heard."

I needed to figure out
how to hold on by my fingertips
for ten years.

I carried this responsibility
for Bill Finger, Bob Kane.

I carried it for DC Comics.

I carried it for every fan

who knew the history,
the background,
the creation of Batman.

I believed that
somehow, someday,

I am going to show the world
the true Batman.

Because I knew,

this is gonna be like
a new form of entertainment.

And in the end,
I was right.