Results tagged “thedarkknight”

Did you know that there's a southeastern city in Turkey named Batman? The mayor of that city, Huseyin Kalkan, is now suing Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros. for royalties to The Dark Knight! Kalkan explains: "There is only one Batman in the world. The American producers used the name of our city without informing us." Variety digs deeper into the craziness, pondering why "no one from the town of Batman has explained why it took so many years to take legal action. Batman first appeared as a comicbook character in 1939 and the TV series started in 1966. Tim Burton's first bigscreen rendition came out in 1989." Hmm, wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that the latest film is racking it up at the box office, "about to pass the $1 billion mark." But wait, it gets stranger! Kalkan's series of charges also includes placing the blame on Nolan & Co. "for a number of unsolved murders and a high female suicide rate on the psychological impact that the film's success has had on the city's inhabitants." Allegedly some former natives of Batman have had problems registering their businesses abroad.

More details (and by details we mean gossip) have emerged on the Christian Bale arrest yesterday. The tabloids and TMZ have talked to an anonymous friend and are reporting that the heated shouting match that erupted in Bale’s hotel suite Sunday night was sparked by a disparaging comment made by his mother about his wife, Sandra (Sibi) Blazic. Says the friend:

Christian was stressed, but he didn't lay a finger on anyone. Instead, he flew off the handle and cussed his mother. He just got very loud because his mother was saying some very outrageous things about him, and his wife. He has stresses in his marriage He can have a terrible temper. Instead of lashing out at his wife, he sometimes lashes out at people around him. His marriage is not perfect, but his relationship with his mother is in much more trouble.

TMZ has it that Bale’s relationship with his mother, a former circus clown named Jenny James, has been “bitter” ever since he moved to L.A. as a boy with his father after his parents’ divorce: “Christian's camp thinks this could be nothing more than a shakedown. We're told some newspapers and mags have already been throwing around ‘insane’ amounts of money for the story, so mom and sis could score big.”

While in London over the weekend to attend The Dark Knight premiere, Welsh actor Christian Bale was arrested after his 61-year-old mother and 40-year-old sister reported him to the police for assaulting them on Sunday night in his suite at London's Dorchester Hotel, on the eve of the premiere. Bale is still being held by police, but the Guardian has it that he was temporarily released from custody to attend the premiere, do interviews and other important stuff that puts movie stars above the law. It’s also unclear what sparked the alleged assault, but Bale’s mother is rumored to be a huge Michael Keaton fan.

The Dark Knight has officially opened, and the figures are in: the NY Times reports that the movie took in "$18.5 million in gross revenue at its 12 a.m. opening screenings early Friday morning at 3,040 screens, the most ever for midnight shows." Gawker laments about the movie taking the title from 2005's Star Wars, Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith, which previously held it for racking up $16.9 million at 2,915 screens. Meanwhile, the single-day box office record previously held by Spider-Man 3 was also shattered: The Dark Knight took in $66.4 million on opening day (to Spidey's $59.8 million).

Today the little movie that could, The Dark Knight, opens on the wings of a cosmic hype that could make it the third biggest box office earner this year.

At a press/industry screening of The Dark Knight at the Lincoln Square IMAX last night, the line was already halfway down 68th Street an hour before showtime – and these are the overprivileged industry slobs. It’s going to be pandemonium Friday once the rabid fanboys take over. But you already knew that; the question of the hour is, “Does it live up to the hype?” Well, considering that the anticipation level rivals that of Evangelical zealots craving the second coming, or geeks clamoring for the iPhone 3G, it’s no small achievement that The Dark Knight does – periodically – manage to meet our insane expectations.

A brand new full-length trailer for The Dark Knight hit the web today; the last one circulated in December -- just one month before one of the film's stars, Heath Ledger, was found dead. This trailer was originally screened at NYC's Comic-Con late last month, and gave viewers the first glimpse of Aaron Eckhart's Two-Face character. Watch the larger version here.

Even though New York City has around 98 monikers, did you know that there is no official city nickname?

Just a little over two weeks after his death, and as his family prepares to bury him, the NYC medical examiner has given the results of Heath Ledger's toxicology report.

Yesterday, over a hundred people - made up of "fans, reporters and photographers" - waited outside the Frank E. Campbell funeral home, where the body of actor Heath Ledger had been kept since ME's autopsy. Ledger had been found dead in a SoHo apartment by his masseuse and housekeeper on Tuesday afternoon. The cause of death is inconclusive, but he had a number of prescription drugs in the apartment, many of them to aid sleeping (he had been described as looking tired recently and even told interviewers he had trouble sleeping after filming The Dark Knight).

Okay people, time for your morning update on The Ledge – come on, you know you want it. Even Daniel Day Lewis says there’s nothing else to talk about. (Scroll down.)

Yesterday afternoon the world learned of Heath Ledger's untimely death. Both old and new media gossiped, rumor-mongered, and pitched their circus tents outside of his building on Broome Street the moment word spread. Sadly, most of his close friends and relatives, including his parents, heard about the tragedy through the newswire.

The latest in the Batman canon, The Dark Knight, is poised to be next summer's blockbuster hit, and ex-Brooklynite/current Manhattanite Heath Ledger seems to be stealing the show. A trailer recently came out with plenty of focus on Ledger's Joker character, and you can watch it below (MTV also has a shot-by-shot analysis). Does he outshine Jack Nicholson's 1989 Joker? We're excited to see this new take on the crime clown.