Development Following the critical and financial success of
Batman Begins (2005), the film studio
Warner Bros. Pictures prioritized a sequel. Although
Batman Begins ends with a scene in which Batman is presented with a
joker playing card, teasing the introduction of his archenemy, the Joker,
Christopher Nolan did not intend to make a sequel and was unsure
Batman Begins would be successful enough to warrant one. Nolan, alongside his wife and longtime producer
Emma Thomas, had never worked on a sequel film but he and co-writer
David Goyer discussed ideas for a sequel during filming. Goyer developed an outline for two sequels, but Nolan remained unsure how to continue the
Batman Begins narrative while keeping it consistent and relevant, though he was interested in using the Joker in
Begins grounded, realistic style. Discussions between Warner Bros. Pictures and Nolan began shortly after
Batman Beginss theatrical release, and development began following the production of Nolan's
The Prestige (2006).
Writing Goyer and Christopher Nolan collaborated for three months to develop
The Dark Knight core plot points. They wanted to explore the theme of escalation and the idea that Batman's extraordinary efforts to combat common crimes would lead to an opposing escalation by criminals, attracting the Joker, who uses terrorism as a weapon. The joker playing card scene in
Batman Begins was intended to convey the fallacy of Batman's belief his war on crime would be temporary. Goyer and Nolan did not intentionally include real-world parallels to terrorism, the
war on terror, and laws enacted to combat terrorists by the United States government because they believed making overtly political statements would detract from the story. They wanted it to resonate with and reflect contemporary audiences. Nolan described
The Dark Knight as representative of his own "fear of anarchy" and Joker represents "somebody who wants to just tear down the world around him." Although he was a fan of
Batman (1989), starring
Jack Nicholson as the Joker, Goyer did not consider Nicholson's portrayal scary and wanted
The Dark Knights Joker to be an unknowable, already-formed character, similar to the shark in
Jaws (1975), without a "cliché" origin story. Nolan and Goyer did not give their Joker an origin story or a narrative arc, believing it made the character scarier; Nolan described their film as the "rise of the Joker". They felt the threat of cinematic villains such as
Hannibal Lecter and
Darth Vader had been undermined by subsequent films depicting their origins. With the help of his brother Christopher,
Jonathan Nolan spent six months developing the story into a draft screenplay. After submitting the draft to Warner Bros., Jonathan spent a further two months refining it until Christopher had finished directing
The Prestige. The brothers collaborated on the final script over the next six months during pre-production for
The Dark Knight. Jonathan found the "poignant" ending to be the script's most interesting aspect; it had always depicted Batman fleeing from police but was changed from him leaping across rooftops to escaping on the
Batpod, his motorcycle-like vehicle. The dialogue Jonathan considered most important, "you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain", came late in development. Influenced by films such as
The Godfather (1972) and
Heat (1995), and maintaining the tone of
Batman Begins, their finished script bore more resemblance to a crime drama than a traditional
superhero film. Comic-book influences included writer
Frank Miller's 1980s works, which portray characters in a serious tone, and the limited series
Batman: The Long Halloween (1996–1997), which explores the relationship between Batman, Dent, and Gordon. Dent was written as
The Dark Knight central character, serving as the center of the battle between Batman, who believes Dent is the hero the city needs, and the Joker, who wants to prove even the most righteous people can be corrupted. Christopher said the title refers to Dent as much as Batman. He considered Dent as having a duality similar to Batman's, providing interesting dramatic potential. Focusing on Dent meant Bruce Wayne / Batman was written as a generally static character who did not undergo drastic character development. Christopher found writing the Joker the easiest aspect of the script. The Nolans identified the traits common to his media incarnations and were influenced by the character's comic-book appearances as well as the villain
Dr. Mabuse from the films of
Fritz Lang. Writer
Alan Moore's
graphic novel,
Batman: The Killing Joke (1988), did not influence the main narrative but Christopher believed his interpretation of the Joker as someone partially driven to prove anyone can become like him when pushed far enough helped the Nolans give purpose to an "inherently purposeless" character. The Joker was written as a purely evil psychopath and anarchist who lacks reason, logic, and fear, and could test the moral and ethical limits of Batman, Dent, and Gordon. Christopher and Jonathan later realized they had inadvertently written their version similarly to Joker's first appearance in
Batman #1 (1940). The final scene, in which the Joker states he and Batman are destined to battle forever, was not intended to tease a sequel but to convey that the diametrically opposed pair were in an endless conflict because they will not kill each other.
Casting (pictured in 2010) replaced
Katie Holmes in the role of assistant district attorney Rachel Dawes. Describing how his character had evolved from
Batman Begins, Christian Bale said Wayne had changed from a young, naive, and angry man seeking purpose to a hero who is burdened by the realization his war against crime is seemingly endless. Because the new Batsuit allowed him to be more agile, Bale did not increase his muscle mass as much as he had for
Batman Begins. Nolan had deliberately obscured combat in the previous film because it was intended to portray Batman from the criminals' point of view. The improved Batsuit design let him show more of Bale's Keysi-fighting method training. Nolan was aware that Nicholson's popular portrayal of the Joker would invite comparisons to his version, and wanted an actor who could cope with the associated scrutiny. Ledger's casting in August 2006 was criticized by some industry professionals and members of the public who considered him inappropriate for the role; executive producer
Charles Roven said Ledger was the only person seriously considered, and that
Batman Begins positive reception would help alleviate any concerns. Nolan was confident in the casting because discussions between himself and Ledger had demonstrated they shared similar ideas regarding the Joker's portrayal. Ledger said he had some trepidation in succeeding Nicholson in the role but that the challenge excited him. He described his interpretation as a "psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy", and avoided humanizing him. He was influenced by
Alex from the crime film
A Clockwork Orange (1971), and British musicians
Johnny Rotten and
Sid Vicious. Ledger spent about a month secluding himself in a hotel room while reading relevant comic books. He developed the character's voice by mixing a high-pitch and low-pitch, which was inspired by ventriloquist performances. His fighting style was designed to appear improvised and erratic. Ledger spent a further four months creating a "Joker diary" containing images and elements he believed would resonate with his character, such as finding the disease
AIDS humorous. Describing his performance, Ledger said: "It's the most fun I've had with a character and probably will ever have... It was an exhausting process. At the end of the day, I couldn't move. I couldn't talk. I was absolutely wrecked." In a November 2007 interview, Ledger said when committing himself to any role, he had difficulty sleeping because he could not relax his mind, and often slept only two hours a night during filming. Nolan wanted to cast an actor with an all-American "heroic presence" for Harvey Dent, something he likened to
Robert Redford but with an undercurrent of anger or darkness.
Josh Lucas,
Ryan Phillippe, and
Mark Ruffalo were considered, as well as
Matt Damon, who could not commit due to scheduling conflicts. According to Nolan, Eckhart had the all-American charm and "aura ... of a good man pushed too far". Eckhart found portraying conflicted characters to be interesting; he said the difference between Dent and Batman is the distance they are willing to go for their causes, and that after Dent's corruption he remains a crime fighter but he takes this to an extreme because he dislikes the restrictions of the law. Eckhart's performance was influenced by the
Kennedy family, particularly
Robert F. Kennedy, who fought organized crime with a similarly idealistic view of the law. During discussions on the portrayal of Dent's transformation into Two-Face, Eckhart and Nolan agreed to ignore
Tommy Lee Jones's "colorful" portrayal in
Batman Forever (1995), in which the character has pink hair and wears a split designer suit, in favor of a more realistic, slightly burnt, neutral-toned suit. Describing his role as GCPD Lieutenant James Gordon, Oldman said Gordon is the "moral center" of
The Dark Knight, an honest and incorruptible character struggling with the limits of his morality. Maggie Gyllenhaal replaced
Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes, as Holmes chose to star in the crime comedy
Mad Money (2008) instead. Gyllenhaal approached Rachel as a new character and did not reference Holmes's previous performance. Nolan described Rachel as the emotional connection between Wayne and Dent, ultimately serving as a further personal loss to fuel Wayne's character. Gyllenhaal collaborated with Nolan on the character's depiction because she wanted Rachel to be important and meaningful in her relatively minor role. Musician
Dwight Yoakam turned down a role as the bank manager or a corrupt police officer because he was recording his album
Dwight Sings Buck (2007). Hong Kong actor
Edison Chen had a role in the film, but this was mostly cut following his involvement in a
sex photo scandal.
Pre-production In October 2006, location scouting for Gotham City took place in the United Kingdom in
Liverpool,
Glasgow, London, and parts of
Yorkshire, and in several cities in the United States. Nolan chose Chicago because he liked the area and believed it offered interesting architectural features without being as recognizable as locations in better-known cities such as New York City. Chicagoan authorities had been supportive during filming of
Batman Begins, allowing the production to shut stretches of roads, freeways, and bridges. Nolan wanted to exchange the more natural, scenic settings of
Batman Begins such as the
Himalayas and caverns for a modern, structured environment the Joker could disassemble. Production designer
Nathan Crowley said the clean, neat lines of Chicagoan architecture enhanced the urban-crime drama they wanted to make, and that Batman had helped improve the city. The destruction of Wayne Manor in
Batman Begins provided an opportunity to move Wayne to a modern, sparse penthouse, reflecting his loneliness. Sets were still used for some interiors such as the Bat Bunker, the replacement for the
Batcave, on the outskirts of the city. The production team considered placing it in the penthouse basement but believed it was too unrealistic a solution. Much of
The Dark Knight was filmed using
Panavision's Panaflex Millennium XL and Platinum cameras but Nolan wanted to film about 40 minutes with
IMAX cameras, a high-resolution technology using
70 mm film rather than the more-commonly used format
35 mm; the finished film includes 15–20% IMAX footage, running for about 28 minutes. This made it the first major motion picture to use IMAX technology, which was generally employed for documentaries. Warner Bros. was reluctant to endorse the use of the technology because the cameras were large and unwieldy, and purchasing and processing the film stock cost up to four times as much as typical 35 mm film. Nolan said cameras that could be used on
Mount Everest could be used for
The Dark Knight, and had cinematographer
Wally Pfister and his crew begin training to use the equipment in January 2007 to test its feasibility. Nolan particularly wanted to film the bank heist prologue in IMAX to immediately convey the difference in scope between
The Dark Knight and
Batman Begins.
Filming in Chicago .
The Dark Knight was mainly filmed on location in the city.
Principal photography began on April 18, 2007, in Chicago on a $185million budget. For
The Dark Knight, Pfister chose to combine the "rust-style" visuals of
Batman Begins with the "dusk"-like color scheme of
The Prestige (cobalt blues, greens, blacks, and whites), in part to address over-dark scenes in
Batman Begins. To avoid attention, filming in Chicago took place under the
ruse title ''Rory's First Kiss'' but the production's true nature was quickly uncovered by media publications. The Joker's homemade videos were filmed and mainly directed by Ledger. Caine said he forgot his lines during a scene involving one video because of Ledger's "stunning" performance. The first scene filmed was the bank heist, which was shot in the
Old Chicago Main Post Office over five days. It was scheduled early to test the IMAX procedure, allowing it to be refilmed with traditional cameras if needed, and it was intended to be publicly released as part of the marketing campaign. Pfister described it as a week of patience and learning because of the four-day wait for the IMAX footage to be processed. Filming moved to England throughout May, returning to Chicago in June. Filming took place in the lobby of
One Illinois Center, which served as Wayne's penthouse apartment; bookcases were built to hide the elevators. A floor of Two Illinois Center was decorated for Wayne's fundraiser. The crew was described as excited as this scene depicted the first meeting between Batman and the Joker. The windows in both settings were covered in
green screen material, allowing Gotham City visuals to be added later. In July, three weeks were spent filming the truck chase scene, mainly on
Wacker Drive, a multi-level street that had to be closed overnight. During filming, Nolan added a set-piece of a SWAT van crashing through a concrete barricade. The sequence continued on
LaSalle Street, which was also used for the GCPD funeral procession, for a practical truck-flip stunt and helicopter sequence. Additional segments were filmed on Monroe Street and
Randolph Street, and at
Randolph Street Station.
Navy Pier, along the shore of
Lake Michigan, served as Gotham Harbor in a climactic ferry scene. Scouts spent over a month searching for suitable vessels but were unsuccessful, so construction coordinator Joe Ondrejko and his team built ferry facades atop barges. The entire sequence was filmed in one day and involved 800
extras, who were moved through makeup and clothing departments in shifts. Exterior footage of the Gotham Prewitt Building, the site of Batman's and the Joker's final confrontation, was filmed at the in-construction
Trump International Hotel and Tower. The owners refused permission to film a stunt in which Batman suspends a SWAT team from the building, so this was filmed from the fortieth floor of a separate building site. A former
Brach's candy factory on
Cicero Avenue scheduled for demolition was used to film the Gotham General Hospital explosion in August 2007. Filming in Chicago concluded on September 1, ending with scenes of Wayne driving and crashing his car, before the production returned to England.
The Dark Knight includes Chicago locations such as Lake Michigan, which doubled as the
Caribbean Sea where Wayne boards a seaplane;
Richard J. Daley Center (Wayne Enterprises exteriors and a courtroom);
The Berghoff restaurant (GCPD arresting mobsters); Twin Anchors restaurant; the Sound Bar;
McCormick Place (Wayne Enterprises interiors); and
Chicago Theatre.
330 North Wabash served as offices used by Dent, mayor Garcia, and commissioner Loeb; and its thirteenth floor appears as Wayne Enterprises' boardroom; Pfister enhanced its large, panoramic windows and natural light with an glass table and reflective bulbs. A Randolph Street parking garage is where Batman captures Scarecrow and Batman impersonators. Nolan wanted several
Rottweiler dogs in the scene but locating a dog-handler willing to simultaneously manage several dogs was difficult. A scene of Batman surveying the city from a rooftop edge was filmed atop
Willis Tower, Chicago's tallest building. Stuntman Buster Reeves was due to double as Batman, but Bale persuaded the filmmakers to let him perform the scene himself. The thirteen weeks of filming in Chicago was estimated to have generated $45million for the city's economy and thousands of local jobs.
Filming in England and Hong Kong including the vast Bat Bunker Many interior locations for
The Dark Knight were filmed on sets at
Pinewood Studios,
Buckinghamshire, and
Cardington Airfield,
Bedfordshire; these locations include the Bat Bunker, which took six weeks to build in a Cardington hangar. The Bat Bunker was based on 1960s Chicago building designs, and was integrated into existing concrete floor, and used the long, tall ceiling to create a broad perspective. The tall hangar was unsuitable for suspending the bunker roof, and an encompassing gantry was built to hold it and the lighting. After moving from Chicago in May, scenes filmed in the UK also include
Criterion Restaurant, where Rachel, Dent, and Wayne share dinner, and a Gotham News scene that was filmed at the
University of Westminster. The GCPD headquarters was rebuilt in the
Farmiloe Building. During the interrogation scene, Ledger asked Bale to physically hit him and, although he declined, Ledger cracked and dented the walls by throwing himself around. After returning to England in the middle of September, scenes were filmed for the ferry, hospital, and Gotham Prewitt building interiors. By mid-October, interior and exterior scenes of Rachel being held hostage surrounded by barrels of gasoline were filmed at
Battersea Power Station. To avoid damaging the power station, a
listed building, a false wall was built in front of it and lined with explosives. Nearby residents contacted emergency services believing the explosion was a terrorist attack. Filming in England concluded at the end of October with a variety of green-screen shots for the truck-chase sequence, and shots of Rachel being thrown from a window were filmed on a set at Cardington. The final nine days of production took place in Hong Kong and included aerial footage from atop the
International Finance Centre, as well as filming at
Central to Mid-Levels escalator,
The Center,
Central,
The Peninsula Hong Kong, and
Queen's Road; and a stunt involving Batman catching an in-flight
C-130 aircraft. Despite extensive rehearsals of Reeves jumping from the
McClurg Building in Chicago, a planned stunt to depict Batman leaping from one Hong Kong skyscraper to another was canceled because local authorities refused permission for helicopter use; Pfister described the officials as a "nightmare". Nolan disputed a report that said a scene of Batman leaping into
Victoria Harbour was canceled because of pollution concerns, saying it was a script decision. The 127-day shoot concluded on November 15, on time and under budget.
Post-production Editing was underway in January 2008 when Ledger, aged 28, died from an accidental overdose of a prescription drug. A rumor his commitment to his performance as the Joker had affected his mental state circulated, but this was later refuted. Nolan said editing the film became "tremendously emotional, right when he passed, having to go back in and look at him every day [during editing]... but the truth is, I feel very lucky to have something productive to do, to have a performance that he was very, very proud of, and that he had entrusted to me to finish". Because Nolan preferred to capture sound while filming rather than
re-recording dialogue in post-production, Ledger's work had been completed before his death, and Nolan did not modify the Joker's narrative in response. Nolan added a dedication to Ledger and stuntman Conway Wickliffe, who died during rehearsals for a Tumbler (
Batmobile) stunt. Alongside lead editor
Lee Smith, Christopher Nolan took an "aggressive editorial approach" to editing
The Dark Knight to achieve its 152-minute running time. He said no scenes were deleted because he believed every scene was essential, and that unnecessary material had been cut before filming. The Nolans had difficulties refining the script to reduce the running time. After removing so much material that they believed the story had become incomprehensible, they added more scenes.
Special effects and design Unlike the design process of
Batman Begins, which was restrained by a need to represent Batman iconography, audience acceptance of its realistic setting gave
The Dark Knight more design freedom.
Chris Corbould, the film's
special effects supervisor, oversaw the 700 effect shots
Double Negative and
Framestore produced; there were relatively few effects compared to equivalent films because Nolan only used
computer-generated imaging where practical effects would not suffice. Production designer
Nathan Crowley designed the Batpod (
Batcycle) because Nolan did not want to extensively re-use the Tumbler. Corbould's team built the Batpod, which is based on a prototype Crowley and Nolan built by
combining different commercial model components. The unwieldy, wide-tired vehicle could only be ridden by stuntman Jean Pierre Goy after months of training. The Gotham General Hospital explosion was not in the script but added during filming because Corbould believed it could be done. Hemming, Crowley, Nolan, and Jamie Rama re-designed the Batsuit to make it more comfortable and flexible, developing a costume made from a stretchy material covered in over 100 urethane armor pieces. Sculptor Julian Murray developed Dent's burnt-facial design, which is based on Nolan's request for a skeletal appearance. Murray went through designs that were "too real and more horrifying" before settling on a more "fanciful" and detailed but less-repulsive version. Hemming designed Joker's overall appearance, which he based on fashion-and-music celebrities to create a modern and trendy look. Influence also came from the 1953 painting ''
Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X'' by
Francis Bacon—suggested by Nolan—and the character's comic-book appearances. The outfit consists of a purple coat, a green vest, an antique shirt, and a thin, 1960s-style tie that Ledger suggested. Prosthetics supervisor
Conor O'Sullivan created Joker's scars, which he partly based on a scarred delivery man he met, and used his own technique to create and apply the supple, skin-like prosthesis.
John Caglione Jr designed Joker's "organic" makeup to look as though it had been worn for days; this idea was partly based on more of Bacon's works. Caglione Jr used a theatrical makeup technique for the application; he instructed Ledger to scrunch up his face so different cracks and textures were created once the makeup was applied and Ledger relaxed. Ledger always applied the lipstick himself, believing it was essential to his characterization.
Music Composers
James Newton Howard and
Hans Zimmer, who had also worked on
Batman Begins, scored
The Dark Knight because Nolan believed it was important to bridge the musical-narrative gap between the films. The score was recorded at
Air Studios, London. Howard and Zimmer composed the score without seeing the film because Nolan wanted them to be influenced by the characters and story rather than fitting specific on-screen elements. Howard and Zimmer separated their duties by character; Howard focused on Dent and Zimmer focused on Batman and the Joker. Zimmer did not consider Batman to be strictly noble and wrote the theme to not seem "super". Howard wrote about ten minutes of music for Dent, wanting to portray him as an American who represents hope, but undergoes an emotional extreme and moral corruption. He used brass instruments for both moral ends but warped the sound as Dent is corrupted. Zimmer wanted to use a single note for the Joker's theme; he said, "imagine one note that starts off slightly agitated and then goes to serious aggravation and finally rips your head off at the end". He could not make it work, however, and used two notes with alternating tempos and a "
punk" influence. The theme was influenced by
electronic music innovators
Kraftwerk and Zimmer's work with rock band
The Damned. He wanted to convey elements of the Joker's corrosion, recklessness, and "otherworldliness" by combining electronic and orchestral music, and modifying almost every note after recording to emulate sounds including thunder and razors. He attempted to develop original sounds with synthesizers, trying to create an "offputting" result by instructing musicians to start with a single note and gradually shift to the second over a three-minute period; the musicians found this difficult because it was the opposite of their training. It took several months to achieve Zimmer's desired result. Following Ledger's death, Zimmer considered discarding the theme for a more traditional one but he and Howard believed they should honor Ledger's performance. ==Release==