Wizard World Chicago 2007: Dark Night Panel
Holy Crap was that awesome!! I got to be one of the lucky convention attendants that were able to sit in on the Dark Knight panel that Warner Bros put on as cast and crew finish filming Chicago. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but any kind of electronic recording device was forbidden. In attendance were David Goyer, the Nolan brothers (Chris and Nolan), Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, and Batman himself Christian Bale.
The panel was opened with each member saying a few words of thanks to the people and the extremely warm reception and the general, “We’ve had lots of fun doing these films” statements. After which the panel was opened for Q&A.
The Q&A was mostly unsatisfying. Many of the questions were answered with the fairly pat answers and Chris Nolan even admitted to not being a fan of Con panels because he didn’t want people to see his unfinished work. The most interesting question if we would see Batman being more of the world’s greatest detective. Chris Nolan fielded the questions with a big “yes”, reiterating that Batman Begins was an origin story and that we’ll see Batman use his amazing mind to battle his foes.
Then we saw the footage that was in the best terms, a trailer (approximately a minute, but with the adrenaline pumping, it seemed shorter). I’ll go thorough the bullet points.
· We see the sweeping crane shot of Batman on top of a Chicago building
· A fire-truck burning in the streets.
· The Tumbler in a very well-lit garage.
· The bat-suit rising out of the floor from a hidden compartment
· Harvey Dent riding in a limo with a Smith and Wesson six shooter
· Batman jumping on the roofs of cars
· James Gordon questing someone
· Bruce Wayne meets Harvey Dent for the first time,
Dent: “The famous Bruce Wayne, Rachel has told me all about you!”
Wayne: “I hope not.”
· The Joker (who look creepy as hell) being question by Gordon
· Batman beating the hell out of the Joker in the interrogation room (flipping him up on the table) and the Joker laughing the whole time.
· Joker walking down the street with a Tommy-gun (I think) and then squeezing off a few rounds, followed by an explosion.
· Bruce Wayne kissing some girl (we only saw the back of her head)
· A few more quick shots of the Joker
· A coin flips onto a counter next to a glass on a bar, the bartender starts to pour the shot before looking up, his response, “Jesus, Harvey, I thought you were dead!”
A hand picks up the shot, and it is slammed off screen before Aaron Eckhart’s voice answers, “Half.”
Over all, the footage was very cool and will be the talk of the Con on Sunday and the bar on Saturday.
*SB add-on* – Watch for the video footage of all the folks who stood in line Saturday Morning to get the wristband to get into the DK panel
*JK add-on* – Here is the fan reaction record from our friends at Wizard
