Nolan Previews The Joker’s IMAX Introduction

Nolan Previews The Joker’s IMAX Introduction
Posted on December 4th, 2007 at 10:10 am by Editor

Radtke at UGO’s Movie Blog was invited to an exclusive IMAX screening of the first six minutes of The Dark Knight. Before the clip ran, directory Christopher Nolan stood before us, dramatically lit from behind by the glowing 80-foot IMAX screen. He shot several scenes using the IMAX camera; a first for a feature length film. These six minutes introduce Heath Ledger’s interpretation of The Joker to the world. Nolan intended this scene to act as a short film.

It starts off with a breathtaking shot of Gotham City in broad daylight. The camera swoops into this big glass skyscraper the way only an IMAX movie can. It was stunning. Then BOOM! One of the windows in this big glass skyscraper is blown out. It then cut to two thugs in ugly clown masks shooting a zip line down to an adjacent rooftop.

Cut to the street as we see another thug waiting on a street corner with his clown mask in his hand. We’re looking at him from behind and can’t see his face. A van pulls up and the thug puts on his mask and jumps in to join the rest of the clowns. The clown who’s driving is bitching about how this Joker guy who planned the heist didn’t even bother to show up and questions why they should cut him in on any of the loot. There’s an awesome line from one of the clowns about The Joker and how he wears make-up as “war paint” to scare the crap out of people.

The two clowns in the skyscraper dramatically swing down to the rooftop while the clowns in the van enter the bank guns a blazing. One of the rooftop clowns disables the silent alarm and comments that the alarm isn’t going to the cops. Once the alarm is halted, his partner shoots him dead. William Fichtner is the bank manager and he looks pissed. Then cut to two clowns cracking the safe. Once the one clown gets the safe door open, his partner shoots him dead. The remaining clown starts to fill the gym bags with cash.

As the clowns in the bank lobby control the crowd, Fichtner goes to work. The bank manager pulls out a shotgun and starts hunting clowns. Fichtner is enraged and ranting on about how these clowns have no idea who they are messing with. You learn that much like the rest of Gotham City this bank is corrupt and run by the mob. Nice twist. Fichtner runs out of shells and the remaining clowns shoot him. He’s down, but not dead. Then the clowns start to argue with each other. One clown asks the other, “So, I guess the Joker told you to shoot me once we had the money?” The other clown tells him, “No, I’m supposed to shoot the bus driver.”

“Bus driver?” WHAM! A school bus crashes through the front of the bank, running over the first clown. The back of the bus opens and the bus driver clown jumps out and helps load up the loot. Then bus driver clown gets capped. One clown left.

Fichtner bank manager then mutters something about there once being honor in the underworld of Gotham and this gets the clown’s attention. The clown shoves a grenade in Fichtner’s mouth with a string attached to the pin. The clown takes off his mask and we get an 80-foot IMAX Heath Ledger Joker face telling us “whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stranger.” The Joker jumps into the school bus, closes the back door on the string, and drives off. The pin on the grenade is pulled as the bus pulls away. Instead of an explosion, pink gas is released. The school bus pulls into the street and joins a convoy of school buses loaded with children. The Joker escapes into Gotham City.