Over Easter weekend the Odeon BFI IMAX at Waterloo in London hosted a mammoth event: Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy back-to-back. Watching Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises together clocks in at a colossal 7 hours and 37 minutes and it was glorious. Kicking off with Batman Begins, the hero’s journey origin story was specially formatted for IMAX screens a few years ago and looks all the better for it. But the best was yet to come with the final two films.
For The Dark Knight, Nolan used 70mm IMAX cameras to capture some of the blockbuster crime thriller’s best-loved action scenes.
The iconic opening bank robbery and the climactic confrontation between Batman and Heath’s Ledger’s Joker consumed the entire height of the IMAX screen, totally immersing the audience in the world of Gotham.
The authenticity of the experience was enjoyed all the more when noticing the 70mm’s scratch marks, reminding us that this was indeed an actual print of the original master copy of the film we were watching.
But while only 28 minutes were shot by IMAX cameras, it was for far longer in The Dark Knight Rises.
During the Q&A, Nolan revealed how studio executives were concerned that Batman didn’t turn up in the first movie until an hour in, so the director told them that Superman doesn’t appear in his costume in the 1978 Christopher Reeve original until 53 minutes in.
He gleamed: “That statistic is not true by the way. It’s actually a little earlier.”
Now with news that Cary Fukunaga’s Bond 25 is using IMAX cameras, perhaps Nolan will fulfil the rumour mill and be tempted to direct the next Bond movie?
In the meantime he’s releasing his next, currently untitled, IMAX movie in 2020, which will star Elizabeth Debicki, John David Washington and Robert Pattinson.