While I was out of town this weekend, I was informed that Sarah Piper Brown captured via cell phone “The Dark Knight” batsuit on a Chicago set.

After these photos were shot by Sarah, they were transferred to the Treo of a friend named Troy at the Holiday Club near the Clarendon set. Troy then ran in to Phil Tadros.

I finally received them from Phil’s friend and colleague, Anand Danak, and published them on HollywoodChicago.com. These mobile photos were taken on June 16. While it is unclear for certain whether Christian Bale is within or whether this is a stuntman, one expert claims the latter.

“This is a stuntman [or] stand-in wearing a version of the suit for blocking purposes,” said costuming expert Paul J. Wares of these photos in a public post.

He added: “[This is why] it’s during the day [rather than the night]. Go back to the ‘Batman Begins’ special edition and look at the suit the stuntman is wearing for the scenes where he’s taking the monorail/wire ride. You’ll see what I mean. Panic not [about how the suit looks].”

Here is a link to the photo that appeared in Entertainment Weekly, which is the only other picture of the batsuit known at this time.

By the way, I recently screened the film “Rescue Dawn,” which is being touted as Bale’s performance of his lifetime.

6/27/07 update: Following a vast array of news articles written in response to the photos first published on HollywoodChicago.com in this post, it has been globally accepted that these are exclusive first images of the live batsuit.

By ADAM FENDELMAN Editor-in-Chief HollywoodChicago.com adam@hollywoodchicago.com