Hero Express: Dark Knight Station – Big Prologue Announcements, Interviews and Possible Spoilers

Welcome to Dark Knight Station, the Hero Express‘s main stop for all the news on The Dark Knight Rises. We’ll keep you up to date on all the biggest bat-news coming straight from Gotham City.

Mind the gap and avoid the shadows; This stop is the Dark Knight Station for December 3rd, 2011.

Official Announcement for the IMAX Prologue – (IGN)

News that a 6-minute prologue of The Dark Knight Rises would play with Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocal at IMAX theatres has been pretty well-known for a while now, with rumours and talk about it going on for months, but now Warner Bros. has cemented it with an official announcement. The full transcript:

“Warner Bros. Pictures’ “The Dark Knight Rises” — the epic conclusion to filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy — is one of the most anticipated films of 2012, but moviegoers won’t have to wait until next year to see the six-minute opening sequence of the film. The film’s prologue will be unveiled exclusively in select 70mm IMAX® theatres worldwide. The announcement was made today by Dan Fellman, President of Domestic Distribution, and Veronika Kwan-Rubinek, President of International Distribution, Warner Bros. Pictures.

The Prologue will be released in North America on December 16, and in the UK on December 21, 2011. Additional international dates vary by territory and will be announced soon.

In making the 2008 blockbuster “The Dark Knight,” Nolan was the first to use IMAX® cameras in a major motion picture release, and, as now, audiences were given an advance look at that film’s prologue months prior to the Summer 2008 opening. Nolan employed the extremely high-resolution cameras even more extensively on “The Dark Knight Rises”—including the film’s prologue—to achieve unprecedented crispness and clarity and a truly immersive experience for the moviegoers.

Christopher Nolan stated, “Our experience on ‘The Dark Knight’ shooting and projecting IMAX 15 perf 65mm/70mm film was inspiring. The immersive quality of the image goes beyond any other filmmaking tool available, and in revisiting Gotham, we were determined to shoot even more of the movie in this unique format. Giving the fans an early look at an IMAX sequence is a great way to draw attention to what I believe will be an incredible way to experience our story when it comes out next summer.””

The prologue is only set to play in select theaters, and the press release includes a list of all the theaters in North America and the UK where it will run, which you can check out at the bottom of the page. Make sure you are somewhere near one of those places when the day comes. I know at the strike of midnight on December 16th I’ll be at Scotiabank Theatre, cape and utility belt ready to go.

The BATMAN Alphabet

Yesterday Gamma Squad posted their ‘Star Wars’ Alphabet game, and it looked fun. So we’re gonna do something similar…with Batman. Below, listed from A to Z is 26 Batman related characters whose names corespond with the letter they represent.

Try to figure them out before scrolling down to the answers and let us know how you did in the comment section.

CLICK TO ENLARGE

And the answers are…

right…

down…

here:

Dr. Amadeus Arkham: Founder of the famous ‘Arkham Asylum’.
Bob the Goon: Joker’s #1 Guy in Tim Burton’s BATMAN (1989).
Clayface: One of Gotham’s earliest serial killers, debuting in 1940.
Harvey Dent: Gotham’s Most famous District Attorney turns Super Criminal.
Egghead: Created for 1960s TV show, the character was made for Vincent Price.
Lucius Fox: CEO of Wayne Enterprises.
Garfield Lynns: A regular on Gotham’s Most Wanted list, better known as ‘Firefly’.
Harold Allnut: Batman’s trusty engineer and the resident mechanic of the Batcave.
Pamela Isley/Poison Ivy: Among the most famous of the Rouges Gallery.
James Gordon: Perhaps Batman’s Best Friend and best real ally.
Kate Kane: Better known as ‘Batwoman’, she is Gotham’s first openly gay hero.
Lazlo Valentine: Professor Pyg, perhaps the best new villian of the last decade.
Mad Hatter: Jervis Tecth has a somewhat unhealthy obsession with Lewis Carroll…
Edward Nigma: Better known as The Riddler, this ex-villain is now a P.I.
Oswalt Cobblepot: ‘The Penguin’ was portrayed by Danny Devito in Batman Returns.
Alfred Pennyworth: Butler, Doctor, Cook. He is the man behind Wayne Manor.
Harleen F. Quinzel: The Joker’s love sick girlfriend was once a doctor at Arkham.
Roman Sionis: The real name of the original ‘Black Mask’.
Scarface: Arnold Wesker’s wooden boss, the most violent Dummy in comics. 
Talia al Ghul: The daughter of Ras al Ghul and mother to Bruce Wayne’s son.
Ubu: Sticking with the al Ghuls, this is Ras’ bodygaurd.
Victor Fries: Mr. Freeze, killed by the Joker, was brought back cause of the cartoon. 
Waylon Jones: Killer Croc debuted in Detective Comics back in 1983.
Dr. Double X: If you got this one, I’m super impressed, he’s a shitty 1950s villain.
Yvonne Craig: She was the original Batgirl on the 1960 TV show.
Maxie Zues: King of the Jobbers.

So there they are, how’d you do?

Grizzly Review: Conan the Barbarian

In 1932, writer Robert E. Howard created one of the greatest characters in the history American literature – Conan the Barbarian. Most people don’t realize he’s been around that long, commonly associating the character solely with the Schwarzenegger vehicles of the early 1980s. The uneducated masses, which until recently included myself in their ranks, are largely unaware of how in-depth the character’s history is. And now, 27 years after the last Conan movie, the Cimmerian is back on the big screen. And while I was initially underwhelmed by the casting of Jason Momoa, my mood changed after seeing him this season in Game of Thrones.

The Hero Express – Cap’s USO costume, Jor-El cast in ‘Man of Steel’, and a surprise on the set of ‘The Dark Knight Rises’

Welcome to the Hero Express, a new speedy look through the news filled world of superhero movies here on Grizzly Bomb. So let’s get to it. Oh, and consider this your SPOILER ALERT, as The Dark Knight Rises news is pretty revealing.

This is The Hero Express for June 16, 2011:

Gotham’s 20 Best Villains: 5-2

5. Poison Ivy – Batman #181 (June 1966)

Pamela Isley grows up wealthy in Seattle, but with emotionally distant parents. She studies advanced botanical biochemistry at a university with Alec Holland (aka Swamp Thing) under Dr. Jason Woodrue.