A Director's Cut of The Dark Knight Rises May Be Released After All (UPDATED)

UPDATED: Okay, sorry. False alarm. The party is over. The party pooper here is none other than writer/director Christopher Nolan who has confirmed that he has no plans to assemble a longer cut, regardless of how much better the film would be as a result of it. So, don't bother reading this article. There are better things to do (and better posts to read).





Rejoice! I've not (yet) published my extremely long book - er, I mean review - revealing the full extent of my
rather underwhelmed reaction to The Dark Knight Rises. It's been one of my most anticipated films of the past four years and there was a lot to like about it, but it ultimately didn't quite add up to the great film it should have been. I blame a lot of this on the fact that Nolan was likely pressured by the studio to keep the film as far under three hours as possible, as well as the fact that IMAX can only hold 2 hours and 45 minutes worth of film.

Immediately after walking out of the film, however, I'd been talking about how much I wanted to see a longer cut. Hell, a 5 hour cut sounded about right. Just enough time to spend a ridiculous amount of self indulgent time overly developing everything and everyone. Ah. If only. The online community saw a clash of opinions on this subject - some shared my sentiments (though maybe not to the extreme I took it) and others were completely satisfied. The biggest argument against a director's cut of the film was, quite simply, Christopher Nolan doesn't do director's cuts. That's entirely true. He never has done one and one can easily argue that every cut of his work that we've seen in theaters has been his director's cut.


My initial hypothesis about Nolan's time pressures is proving to be accurate as Nuke the Fridge (somehow) got an exclusive scoop from Warner Brothers that a director's cut of the Batman finale is indeed in the works  - and it's said to add roughly 30 minutes to the film's overall runtime. So, if my calculations are right, that means we're looking at a roughly 195 minute movie. Or, in other words, THAT'S OVER THREE HOURS LONG.

SPOILER ALERT (Don't read more if you haven't seen the film)

This is the news that tells me there's a chance I may end up loving this film like I love Batman Begins. It'll never live up to The Dark Knight, but I won't hold that against it. What might we expect in this new runtime? Well, hopefully just more of everything. I think the pace needs to slow the hell down to become something we can care more about, think more about. Oh, yeah, and what about Foley getting run over by a tumbler. That guy needed a horrible death right after we met him, and it was even filmed, but kept from our enjoyment.



Perhaps the single most substantial bit that was cut from the film that we'll get to feast our hungry eyes on will be that elaborate yet strangely missing Bane backstory moment. Costume Designer Lindy Hemming revealed some details about these scenes in a GQ article last month. Here's what she had to say:

"The thing that you should have seen during that sequence is [Bane] being injured in his youth. So one of the fundamental things about his costume is that he has this scar from the back injury. Even if he hasn't got the bulletproof vest on, he still has to wear the waist belt and the braces. In that scene in the prison, where he's learning to fight the same way Batman learned to fight, he's wearing an early version of his waist belt. It's showing support, but it's not the finished on he eventually wears. He's also wearing an early version of his gas mask, all glued together. . .If you look at the film, unless they've cut it - and I'm sure they haven't - There's a whole early section for Tom hardy where he's fighting and being taunted by people. He's got chains on him, and he's standing on a wooden thing while people are attacking him. And, in that scene, he's wearing a much more ragged, primitive version of the mask."

Nuke the Fridge also suggests that the longer cut will contain more Ra's Al Ghul scenes. This is completely unconfirmed at this point, but it seems that Christopher Nolan and his super friends over at Warner Brothers are at least considering this. To think of how much wonderful footage there must be that we could get, I really really really hope this comes to be a reality. Nothing says Merry Christmas like a 3 hour + extended cut of The Dark Knight Rises.