Christopher Nolan Talks About the Prologue & Use of IMAX in His New BATMAN Movie

Christopher Nolan tells Entertainment Weekly that while he is excited to be showing the prologue, but he is also nervous since the film isn't finished. He gladly proclaims that The Dark Knight Rises will have twice as much IMAX footage as compared to the last Batman movie. Where as The Dark Knight had twenty-five minutes worth of IMAX footage, Rises could have as much as fifty minutes. That isn't set in stone of course as Nolan has to finish editing the film.

The extra IMAX footage isn't just from having more action scenes. In fact Nolan is doing quite a bit of experimenting with the medium by using it in intimate and dramatic scenes. Which is something most director wouldn't dream of doing since the IMAX cameras are a notoriously loud contraption.

I did catch one moment, when someone asks Bane if he’ll die should his now widely seen mask be removed. Bane’s reply: “It would be extremely painful — for you.” - Adam B. Vary

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Like several of your other films, this opening sequence just begins — we’re in it from the get go. Why do you like to do that?

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN: I probably haven’t thought it through intellectually, if you like. My feeling, particularly on an action film, is you want to be thrown into a situation that somehow takes your breath away early in the film. I think rhythmically — you know, I view these films as pieces of music — if you start with a bit of a bang, it buys you more time to then calmly move into the story and the characters. We have a lot of characters in this film, a lot of people to introduce, a lot of catching up to do with the audience. So I think it was important to really throw something big on screen and then take our time.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How much of the film did you shoot on IMAX?

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN: We shot about twice what we did last time [on The Dark Knight], at least. Last time we were about 25 minutes [in IMAX]. Obviously, I haven’t cut [the rest of The Dark Knight Rises] yet, so I don’t know the exact running time, but I think we’ll be in the 45 to 50 minute range. Basically all the actions sequences, and some of the more large-scale other bits of the film that aren’t necessarily action. We even shot some dialogue scenes and some quite intimate dramatic scenes, which we haven’t done before. And so some of that will make its way into the film.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Did you ever contemplate shooting the entire film in IMAX?

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN: I didn’t, because the cameras are so loud and so large, it wouldn’t really have been fair for the actors to make them do all the dramatic scenes that way. Although, I have to say, there were some very intense scenes that we did do in front of this massive camera that sounds like a generator or something, and they really did a spectacular job.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Would you ever shoot a film only in IMAX?

CHRISTOPHER NOLAN: Oh, it would depend on the film. I don’t like to use ADR sound — I don’t like to record the dialogue afterwards. And so, unless they could make an IMAX camera that was quiet enough to shoot dialogue scenes, I think I’d always want to go to 35mm, or 65mm like we did with Inception.

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The Dark Knight Rises hits theaters July 20th 2012 and stars Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth, Garly Oldman as Jim Gordon, Tom Hardy as Bane, Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as John Blake and Marion Cotillard as Miranda Tate.