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The Dark Knight
Interview with producer Charles Roven and Aaron Eckhart
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Pedigree: Chris Nolan has brought back all Batman Begins' key cast-members (except Katie Holmes). Newbies Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart only amp up the quality. Estimated budget: $150 million. Predicted box office: $300 million (US gross), $450 million (worldwide).
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Watching The Dark Knight after the tragic death of Heath Ledger will, of course, be a very different experience from what we were all expecting just weeks ago. Before the actor died, his performance as The Joker was already the most anticipated of the year and, though none of that anticipation has gone away, the film will now stand as a memorial to a career that was just hitting its most interesting point.
Christopher Nolan currently has a difficult job to do, editing together a performance of a friend he's just lost, but we couldn't consider this to be in safer hands. Everything Nolan did on Batman Begins was about faith to Batman fans and making the best film possible. He is not a man for exploitation and, if the leering, frightening performance we've seen in trailers and other snippets is indicative of the full performance, this should spectacular tribute.
Of course, Heath Ledger's reinvention of The Joker isn't the only reason fans have been counting the days until The Dark Knight's July reveal. We also have a second Nolanised bad guy: Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent, who will be making his acid-drenched transformation into schizoid nutter Two-Face before the credits roll.
"It's pretty much common knowledge that Two-Face is a character that starts out as a guy called Harvey Dent," says producer Charles Roven. "At the end of Batman Begins, the DA was killed, and so in the time between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, they elected a new DA, and that guy is Harvey Dent. He's reputed to be the white knight of the city, having made his name going after corrupt cops. And yes, at some point in our story, Dent will meet his fate."
The hows and whys and precisely-what-will-he-look-likes of the transformation are being kept under wraps. "He is hurting," says Eckhart himself when Empire visits the movie's Chicago set. "I think he has a lot of anger and resentment." But that's as much as he'll give away. "How I look as Two-Face is going to be a surprise. But, from what I've seen, I think you're going to be really happy. I was!"
There probably won't be a lot of smiles while watching The Dark Knight now, but we still fully expect this to be one of the best of the summer, even the entire year.
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