Film News: Official ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ Trailer Goes Online July 18, 2011

CHICAGO – The official “The Dark Knight Rises” trailer will be released online this Monday, according to The Film Stage [16], which is citing an official date confirmation from Warner Bros. after being contacted by the studio to remove Wednesday’s bootlegged trailer [17]. The online release date of July 18, 2011 is exactly three years since “The Dark Knight” opened on July 18, 2008.

Don’t want to wait? You can see it in theatres now! We wrote on May 22, 2011 [18] that “The Dark Knight Rises” trailer would appear before “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” which opened today. And audiences are reporting that it indeed is.

This Wednesday, a bootlegged version of that 86-second trailer [17] leaked online and appeared on many sites including HollywoodChicago.com. Warner Bros. contacted us to remove the video and we have complied. Sites across the Web have done the same.

But whether you see it in theatres this weekend or wait for Monday, we can tell you this much. It focuses on Gary Oldman’s character. He’s mumbling and lying in a hospital bed. The villain, Bane (Tom Hardy), also appears in the teaser. We also see the epic city imagery of the bat signal that first surfaced on Monday in the film’s official teaser poster [19].

[20]
The first official teaser poster for “The Dark Knight Rises” released on July 11, 2011. Click for a high-resolution version. [20]
Image credit: Warner Bros.

We’re disappointed with this teaser trailer. It feels somber and sleepy. It doesn’t smack you in the face and build excitement as much as previous Batman trailers have. We demand more.

“The Dark Knight Rises” will again star Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne, Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon, Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox and Michael Caine as Alfred. The film also stars Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Juno Temple, Josh Pence, Diego Klattenhoff and Alon Aboutboul. Nestor Carbonell and Daniel Sunjata are currently rumored to be involved.

The film, which is again directed by Christopher Nolan, is scheduled for release on July 20, 2012. “The Dark Knight Rises” is written by David S. Goyer (story), Bob Kane (characters), Christopher Nolan (screenplay), Christopher Nolan (story) and Jonathan Nolan (screenplay) with original music from Hans Zimmer and cinematography by Wally Pfister.

[25]	By ADAM FENDELMAN [26] Publisher HollywoodChicago.com adam@hollywoodchicago.com [25]