Last night we took the crew to see Iron Man. You can read James's and Scott's reviews of the film, but I'll just add that this movie ROCKS, and in case you're a parent debating whether to bring your kids to see it, I felt that what violence is in the film is mostly cartoonish, Indiana Jones-level stuff, so if your kids can handle those films, they'll be fine. All of my kids were engaged in the film from start to finish, and there was nothing in it that scared them as much and that damn sea lion in Happy Feet.

But I digress. Before the film, of course, they had the usual array of trailers (Speed Racer, Indy 4, Prince Caspian), and one of them was for The Dark Knight. Now, I've generally been avoiding seeing or reading too much about The Dark Knight, so this was the first time I'd seen the trailer. And my reaction to it was ... I don't know if I want to see this film. Much as I love Christian Bale and Aaron Eckhart, I just found the scenes of Heath Ledger as the Joker oddly painful to watch.

Are any of you super-fans? I'm talking about the type of fanatic who will buy every single thing associated with a beloved franchise or movie -- from toys to posters -- plus any video store or movie theater paraphernalia that can be scored. If you are, what do you do if you love Christopher Nolan's take on Batman? More specifically, what happens if you run out of wall space? Do you keep them on rotation?* More posters for The Dark Knight have popped up online, over at Omelet.com, and you can check out one of them above.

I'm really digging these obscured-face posters (although not so much the action shots). They're eerie and simple, yet they say so much -- especially with the inclusion of Harvey Dent. It alludes to this whole Two-Face scenario, as well as the way each man chooses to fight -- with games, with weapons, and with politics. I just wish we didn't have to wait so long to see it! Yes, when we've been anxiously awaiting the dark world of Batman, and Heath Ledger's last complete performance, July 18 is too far away.

*And what do you do when the next movie you love comes out? Do you ever have retro months where everything from one movie comes out of storage?

[via Empire]

This impressive-looking new (final?) poster for The Dark Knight recently appeared on the film's fun viral website, WhySoSerious.com. If nothing else, it has to be the most intimidating piece of advertising we've seen for a modern comic book movie. God bless Christopher Nolan for refusing to make anything about this franchise remotely cartoonish. How the hell Batman actually imprinted the flaming bat signal onto that skyscraper, I'm dying to know.

The website also contains a note reading "Four Days," which presumably means that one more trailer will appear on Monday, April 28th. (At least, that's what the folks at ComingSoon.net speculate, and I tend to agree.) If I didn't feel duty-bound to watch it, I probably wouldn't: this is one of the few summer flicks I'm dying to see unspoiled. Nolan makes movies, not frivolous money-making throwaways, and I think The Dark Knight will be no exception.

My favorite piece of Dark Knight artwork, by the way, remains this international poster (the first one, not the second), which was my desktop background for quite a while. It really seems to capture the essence of these new movies.

Holy "Where the hell did this one come from" Batman! In a last ditch effort to win back fans, Warner Bros. has apparently convinced both Christian Bale and Brandon Routh to reprise the roles of Batman and Superman for their upcoming live-action Justice League of America film (currently titled Justice League Mortal). A press release just sent to Cinematical comes with this hilarious quote from a studio rep: "Brandon wasn't too hard to convince; he half-jokingly told us he's dreamt about this opportunity every night for the past several months."

Both men have signed a three-picture deal, which means Warners has plans to extend Justice League beyond the initial film, due out in 2009. Currently, there's no word on whether Armie Hammer (the actor supposed to play Batman) will still appear in some capacity, be it as a younger version of Batman or as a random extra in a background shot. On why he ultimately decided to take the role when there's a good chance it could confuse fans and screw up Nolan's franchise, Bale said, "I don't see me taking on this role getting in the way of anything, aside from someone else's paycheck. The script is awesome. Batman is awesome. Brendon and I look forward to taking this one to the next level."

Sounds like the studio is finally getting serious about this film, bringing on two actors with established fanbases -- guys they know will bolster the flick's box office. There are still a lot of unanswered questions, like what happens to Bryan Singer's The Man of Steel now and will Chris Nolan even go ahead with a third Batman film with Bale doing JLA? Well, one thing is for sure: This whole project just got a lot more interesting ...

For more, check out the entire press release over here.

Christian Bale was on hand at ShoWest to promote some footage from The Dark Knight, and gave a revealing interview to Entertainment Weekly. The magazine immediately pumped him for Batman information, and Bale was forthcoming -- but noncommittal.

When asked if there would be a third installment, Bale wouldn't confirm or deny. "Um, look, let's wait and see." When the magazine "mistakenly" referred to it as a sixth installment, Bale was quick to correct them, and elaborate on the possibilities of a trilogy. "No, no, no, no, no. Part 3 is what I'd consider it, yeah, I don't say part 6. Batman Begins - that was the beginning there, with all due respect to the others. We are re-creating this. You know, obviously the decision is out of my hands. I would, knowing the Dark Knight story, I would like very much to complete a trilogy. And I think that knowing the story of The Dark Knight, it leaves you anticipating something that really can get very, very interesting for a third. Now, the question would be: Is Chris going to be doing it? Because to me I find it tricky to imagine working on it without it being a collaboration with Chris."

So, can we safely assume that Heath Ledger's premature death does not affect the trilogy's storyline? That has been the biggest question on everyone's mind. If you combine this interview with Aaron Eckhart's latest, I am still of the belief that Joker ends up in Arkham, and Two-Face could be the main villain in a third film. I can't imagine they didn't leave Joker's fate open ended, considering the villain's place in Batman's world, but no one from the film seems to feel the storyline cannot continue. Perhaps a bigger question is why Nolan isn't confirmed to continue the series.

Wow, two stories in one day on that coin-flipping madman. That's rather appropriate!

We already knew that Christopher Nolan's version of Two-Face was going to be miles away from Tommy Lee Jones' frightening (in all the wrong ways) portrayal of the villain. Even if we haven't seen any footage of Aaron Eckhart yet, the recent Wizard interview showed he recognized that the character wasn't a scarred caricature.

But it looks like Eckhart is going to be just as surprised by what appears on film as we are. CHUD's Jeremy Smith has the story on the unique approach Nolan is taking with the character. For every Two-Face scene, Nolan shot Eckhart twice -- once in make-up and once without. Yes, that's been done with Gollum and Spider-Man's Green Goblin, but the difference is that you'll be getting two wildly divergent performances in the same shot. Both will be present, but one side will dominate at any given moment. The entire performance can be altered, at will, in the editing room. Smith wonders if all this technical trickery is the reason Two-Face's appearance has been delayed so long.

It's been just about a week since the world was hit with news of Heath Ledger's untimely death. While folks still try to come to terms with how and why he died, those who last worked with him are starting to share their thoughts. Though he wasn't the last man to direct Ledger (that was Terry Gilliam), Christopher Nolan is the director of the last feature film Ledger will ever appear in ... The Dark Knight. As he notes in an article for Newsweek, Nolan is still in the editing room, piecing together the last bits of his film with the face of a young star who died too young staring back at him each and every single day.

Nolan says, "Heath was bursting with creativity. It was in his every gesture. He once told me that he liked to wait between jobs until he was creatively hungry. Until he needed it again. He brought that attitude to our set every day. There aren't many actors who can make you feel ashamed of how often you complain about doing the best job in the world. Heath was one of them."

Nolan also shared that Heath had been working on two short films at the time of his death; that, while shooting The Dark Knight, he would bring his laptop to the set and show Nolan what he was working on. Nolan continues: "When you get into the edit suite after shooting a movie, you feel a responsibility to an actor who has trusted you, and Heath gave us everything. As we started my cut, I would wonder about each take we chose, each trim we made. I would visualize the screening where we'd have to show him the finished film-sitting three or four rows behind him, watching the movements of his head for clues to what he was thinking about what we'd done with all that he'd given us. Now that screening will never be real. I see him every day in my edit suite. I study his face, his voice. And I miss him terribly."

Head over to Newsweek to read the entire tribute.

I was on a shuttle bus at Sundance when my wife text messaged me the news about Heath Ledger. By the time I made it off the bus, everyone was buzzing -- his death had hit the fest like a virus. It didn't take much time, and only a few hours later I started seeing stories from people wondering whether Ledger's death had anything to do with the amount of work he put into the role of Joker in this summer's The Dark Knight. When the New York Times interviewed him last month, Ledger admitted to locking himself in a hotel room for a month to get into character, then downing sleeping pills afterward to catch up on some much-needed rest. Though we're not entirely sure yet, it was most likely a combination of sleeping pills and other medication that did him in.

Warner Bros. has already toned down their aggressive Dark Knight marketing plan, turning the movie's official website into a make-shift shrine dedicated to the actor. So if it was this role that ultimately sent Ledger off in an unhealthy direction, why did he take it on in the first place. ComicMix currently has up an exclusive audio interview with Ledger, conducted last month, in which the actor explains why, exactly, he decided to take on the part. According to the actor, he had no interest in re-creating what Nicholson had so expertly displayed earlier, and that if Burton was directing this film he probably wouldn't have done it. But when Christopher Nolan asked Ledger to play Joker, he watched Batman Begins, saw a different angle he could take and jumped right in. You can check out the interview over here.

Personally, I think it's a cop out to blame a role in a movie for a person's death. Obviously actors and actresses take on all kinds of roles in any given year -- some of which are a lot more demanding than the Joker -- and they come away just fine. What it boils down to is the kind of person you are; how much pressure you put on yourself and what you do to alleviate that pressure. Our thoughts and prayers are with his friends and family this weekend as they say goodbye to a man so many people loved dearly.

The Los Angeles Times spoke to director Christopher Nolan recently with regards to whose story we'll really be seeing when The Dark Knight hits theaters later this summer. While the marketing plan from Warner Bros. has so far concentrated almost exclusively on the Joker (as played by Heath Ledger), Nolan has stepped up to explain just how important the Joker is to the plot of this movie. He says, "Harvey Dent is a tragic figure, and his story is the backbone of this film. The Joker, he sort of cuts through the film -- he's got no story arc, he's just a force of nature tearing through. Heath has given an amazing performance in the role, it's really extraordinary."

Hmmm ... fascinating. But it definitely makes sense. You'll remember that in the opening IMAX scene, it appears the Joker is already somewhat established as a widely-known criminal in Gotham City. So taking Nolan's comments into account, we probably won't see some sort of Joker flashback origin story unless Batman does research and digs up some old newspaper articles (the likely route in any Batman film -- head to the newspaper articles!). This also means that Harvey Dent (played by Aaron Eckhart) will almost certainly make his transformation to Two Face at some point before the end of the flick. The big question is, though, will the Two Face story end in The Dark Knight, or will Nolan tease Two Face into a third film? Additionally, The LA Times also confirms that Cillian Murphy will be reprising his role as Scarecrow in the sequel.

Here's where I make my plea to Warner Brothers: Please, pretty pretty please, do not unveil a photo of Two Face prior to the film arriving in theaters. This is the only secret we have left, and I would love to go into The Dark Knight not knowing what Nolan did with the look of Two Face. I'm on hands and knees Warners. Please.

Most critics simultaneously look forward to and dread awards season. We get to see slightly higher quality films, and the studios begin to act a lot nicer towards us -- no more horror remakes that are not screened for the press. But on the downside, a lot of prestige pictures can get tiring. The worst part of all is the extreme length that most films get away with this time of year. Quite a few films this year get close to the three-hour mark, and most of them run longer than two hours. If you look at the history of the Oscar winners, length has always been an important factor. But this does not have to be the case; many award-worthy films have used their time wisely and succinctly.

1. Duck Soup (1933)
Judd Apatow, please take note. While I enjoyed Knocked Up and Superbad as much as anyone, it just won't do to continue making comedies over two hours long. I found many great comedies that run less than 80 minutes, including several from Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, W.C. Fields, and even one each from Jerry Lewis (The Bellboy) and Woody Allen (Zelig). But this Marx Brothers classic tops my list for its uncanny speed and anarchy. It's like watching a crazy lawnmower ripping all over the yard, but at the end of the run, everything falls exactly into place.

2. Following (1998)
Before he became the king of summer blockbusters (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight) and before he made one of my favorite movies (Memento), Christopher Nolan scraped together this equally impressive crime thriller in black-and-white, running just 69 minutes. It jumbles the three acts together over a fractured timeline but very cleverly leaves clues that tie them all back together. Jeremy Theobald plays a man who enjoys following people, but gets himself into deep and unexpected trouble. See also Shane Carruth's exceptional, low-budget time travel head-scratcher Primer (2004).

From the "Things We Already Figured Out, But It's Nice to See Other People Saying the Same Thing" pile ...

Instead of the usual three little tidbits, today we're bringing you one large mish-mosh of information about the future of Superman, Batman and the Justice League flick. Over on her blog, Variety's Anne Thompson talks a bit about all three of these properties, saying it's "highly unlikely" that Bryan Singer will return to the Superman franchise now that he's decided to scale down and shell out a few passion projects (namely this summer's Valkyrie and The Mayor of Castro Street). Thompson says our next big-screen meeting with the Man of Steel will probably come in the form of a much younger actor in the role as part of that planned Justice League film.

Oh, and about that planned Justice League film -- Thompson doesn't think it will be shot until after the WGA strike is resolved, which could potentially push production back to summer versus the original plan to begin shooting early in 2008. Warner Bros. still hasn't officially announced the cast for Justice League, and last we heard director George Miller was forging ahead, claiming everything was still on schedule. For Christmas, I asked Santa for this whole film to just go away. Let's see if he stands up to his end of the bargain.

Finally, as far as future solo Batman installments go, Thompson says Warner Bros. is so happy with the way The Dark Knight turned out that they seriously hope director Christopher Nolan will return to helm a third film. I always thought a third film was part of his initial contract, but I gather it wasn't. You have to imagine there will be a bunch of loose ends to tie up following Dark Knight, and so here's hoping Nolan returns to finish the job rather than hand the franchise off to someone less worthy.

I apologize for tricking you with that headline. You probably even skipped all this text and headed directly for the video, only to be somewhat disappointed that this is in fact not actually a new trailer for The Dark Knight. While Christopher Nolan's latest installment is one of the movies to see in 2008 (aka 2000-Great, according to my friends), the video below is best described as one of the worst films of 1966. Of course, we all love it, don't we? For some reason, Fark.com's hosting of the video claims Leslie H. Martinson's kitchy Batman is even worse than the two Schumacher installments, but really what would you rather watch? If you didn't say this big-screen spin-off of the Batman TV series, then you clearly don't know how to have fun.

Anyway, this isn't the best-edited piece of parody to grace YouTube, but there are a lot of well-synced clips and that shot of the businessman getting zapped is delightfully awful. I personally love Cesar Romero as the Joker and can't get enough. I also really like what was done with the "little fight in you" section of the Dark Knight trailer: The Joker fights Bruce Wayne, who suddenly becomes Batman for the "then you'll love me" line. Sure, it's not as cute as Maggie Gyllenhaal kicking her brother's boyfriend in the nuts, but it's pretty funny. Anyway, you can check out the real Dark Knight trailer -- though you already have, unless you don't know what's good for you -- over here.