Tagline: A Fire Will Rise
Director: Christopher Nolan
Writers: Jonathan Nolan (screenplay), Christopher Nolan (screenplay)
Release Date: 20 July 2012 (UK)
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some sensuality and language
Genre: Action | Adventure | Drama | Thriller
Runtime:  164 min

Storyline

Despite his tarnished reputation after the events of The Dark Knight, in which he took the rap for Dent’s crimes, Batman feels compelled to intervene to assist the city and its police force which is struggling to cope with Bane’s plans to destroy the city.

Cast Highlights

Christian Bale	… Bruce Wayne
Gary Oldman	… Commissioner Gordon
Joseph Gordon-Levitt	… Blake
Anne Hathaway	… Selina
Marion Cotillard	… Miranda
Morgan Freeman	… Fox
Michael Caine	… Alfred

Gallery Highlights

Trivia

• One of the reasons why Christopher Nolan cast Tom Hardy as Bane was because of his performance in the film RocknRolla. Hardy stated that he thought he was cast because of his role in Bronson. He arrived on set only to learn that Nolan has never even seen Bronson.

• The character of Bane in this film is more reverent and closer to his comic-book counterpart, unlike Batman & Robin, which reduced him to a mindless henchman. In the comic Books, Bane is a general, a strategist and a one-man army, literally forcing Batman to meet his match (and upon their first encounter it would turn out to be the case).

• According to Christopher Nolan, Bane was chosen as the film’s main antagonist “to test Batman mentally as well as physically.”

• To prepare for his role as Bane, Tom Hardy gained 30 pounds in weight, and studied various fighting styles to use in the film.

• Tom Hardy described Bane as an absolute terrorist: “He’s brutal, but also incredibly clinical in the fact that he has a result-based and oriented fighting style. The style is heavy-handed, heavy-footed… it’s nasty. It’s not about fighting, it’s about carnage!”

• Christopher Nolan picked Bane as the main villain. Coincidentally, with no known relation, the name of one of the creators of Bane for the comic books is Graham Nolan.

• Tom Hardy is technically the fifth actor to play Bane in a feature film. In Batman & Robin, Michael Reid MacKay played serial killer Antonio Diego, who is selected for the “Venom” experiment and is transformed into Bane, who is then played by wrestler Jeep Swenson. The remaining two actors voiced Bane in two Dc Animated direct-to-video films, and they were Hector Elizondo in Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman and Carlos Alazraqui in Justice League: Doom.

• Tom Hardy accepted the role of Bane without reading the script. He was verbally told that he would have unprecedented access to extensive stunt training and equipment that he could enjoy knocking around.

• Tom Hardy based his voice for Bane on Bartley Gorman (1944 – 2002), an Irish Traveller who was the undefeated Bare-knuckle boxing champion of the United Kingdom and Ireland, often referred to as the, “King of the Gypsies.” He told The Hollywood Reporter, “The choice of the accent is actually a man called Bartley Gorman, who was a bare knuckle fighter. A Romani gypsy. Which I wanted to underpin the Latin, but a Romani Latin opposed to Latino. His particular accent is very specific, which was a gypsy accent. So that’s why it was difficult to understand. But once you tune into it, you get it. I hope.”

• According to costume designer Lindy Hemming, she took two years to design Bane’s coat; it was inspired by a Swedish army jacket and a French Revolution frock coat, to make Bane look equally dictatorial and revolutionary, “like an amalgam of all sorts of bits and pieces he cobbled together as he passed through some very remote places.”

• Costume effects supervisor Graham Churchyard created a three-dimensional model of Tom Hardy’s face and skull to design Bane’s mask.

• Bane’s theme is a chant which features the word “deshi basara”, which is Arabic for the term “rise”.

• In the scene where Bane enters the stock exchange trading floor, he wears a backpack that has a logo ‘DCS courier services.’ Bob Kane created the ‘Batman’ character for DC Comics.

• 5’10” Tom Hardy had to wear 3 inch lifts to make his character Bane appear as tall or taller than fellow co-stars Christian Bale, ‘Morgan Freeman’, and Michael Caine.

• During the motorcycle chase scene, Bane is wearing a red helmet with black visor as well as a brown motorcycle jacket. This is the original costume Jason Todd took under his Red Hood persona, which is itself a callback to The Joker’s original criminal identity.

• Christopher Nolan recreated much of Bane’s costume and overall appearance. Notably, Nolan removed the full-face mask, which he felt make him look too much like a Pro Wrestler. Nolan felt Bane’s comic book costume would come across in the film as too cartoonish, and wanted to avoid comparisons to the adaption of Bane in Batman & Robin.

• When Bane rips the photo of Harvey Dent in half he does so vertically through the middle of Harvey’s face replicating his transition to Two Face at the end of The Dark Knight.

• The character Barsad, Bane’s right-hand-man played by Josh Stewart, is a sniper and heavy arms expert. He is always shown wearing a bulletproof vest which has large bullets on it and a red scarf. This is a take on the Batman villain DeadShot, a character which co-writer David S. Goyer had expressed interest in bringing to the big screen.

• The Lazarus Pit/Bane’s prison scenes were shot in the city of Jodhpur, Rajasthan. (India). In the comics, Batman visited India to learn how to control his pain.