THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (Empire Exclusive)

• EMPIRE HAS THE EXCLUSIVE ON THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

Empire Subscribers BANE cover

The new issue of Empire magazine has been sent to subscribers and it gives fans something to get excited for as subscribers will get an exclusive BANE magazine cover.

In the article, Nolan reveals that the story picks up eight years after The Dark Knight. "It's really all about finishing Batman and Bruce Wayne's story. We left him in a very precarious place. Perhaps surprisingly for some people, our story picks up quite a bit later, eight years after 'The Dark Knight.' So he's an older Bruce Wayne; he's not in a great state. With Bane, we're looking to give Batman a challenge he hasn't had before. With our choice of villain and with our choice of story we're testing Batman both physically as well as mentally."

Bane

Tom Hardy said that Bane is "brutal. He's a big dude who's incredibly clinical, in the fact that he has a result-based and oriented fighting style. It's not about fighting. It's about carnage. The style is heavy-handed, heavy-footed, it's nasty. Anything from small-joint manipulation to crushing skulls, crushing rib cages, stamping on shins and knees and necks and collarbones and snapping heads off and tearing his fists through chests, ripping out spinal columns. He is a terrorist in mentality as well as brutal action."

Costume designer Lindy Hemming also talked about Bane's mask in the film. "He was injured early in his story. He's suffering from pain and needs gas to survive. He can't survive the pain without the mask. The pipes from the mask go back along his jawline and feed into the thing at his back, where there are two cannisters."

Christian Bale spoke to AceShowbiz, about his character: "How long will you let the pain and loss define your life? Walking around chasing bad guys is very heroic and attracts attention, but at the end it all accounts for, as a means to deal with the pain of a huge loss."

Batman is Leaving us

Bale added, "It's time for Bruce Wayne to face the pain, that has always stirred his life."

The actor already sounds a bit nostalgic about hanging up the cowl, saying, "It's like saying goodbye to an old friend."

So this is definitely the last Batman film and with that huge gap in the story, this just might lead in to a Comic Book tie-in, that expands on these 8 lost years to us fans. That’s just us hoping…