Dark Knight in IMAX

Director Christopher Nolan has announced to USA Today that 4 major action scenes from The Dark Knight, the sequel to Batman Begins, will be filmed in 70mm IMAX film.

I know what you’re thinking: You saw Spider-Man 3, Pirates, Matrix, Star Wars and every other movie available in IMAX for years now. Well this is different, because those features were still shot on 35mm film and simply stretched. No additional detail was made available. By shooting the biggest parts of the movie in IMAX, Nolan will be able to give viewers a real experience you can’t duplicate in a smaller theater or at home.

Of course we don’t know all of what will be big as life in the movie, or how much of the final movie it will be, but Nolan did say the introduction of The Joker would be one of the IMAX scenes. The above image is a slide from that shoot, with two bank robbers wearing clown masks. One of them is the Joker, I’m sure.