Reel Images | The Dark Knight Rises

The tagline for the one of the summer’s most anticipated films is “The Legend Ends.” In less than two weeks, director Christopher Nolan’s vision will be fully-realized when The Dark Knight Rises arrives in theaters.

While plot details are relatively tightly-guarded, the legend of Batman (Christian Bale) will unfold after he has assumed responsibility for the crimes of District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) in order to protect his reputation, he is chased into exile by the Gotham City Police Department. Eight years after the events of The Dark Knight, the appearance of the mysterious Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) sets in motion a chain of events culminating in the arrival of Bane (Tom Hardy), a ruthless terrorist with plans to destroy Gotham City. With the future of the city at stake, Batman must emerge from his exile and confront Bane to bring about an end to his reign of terror.

The film arrives on the heels of the success of the heraled second installment, The Dark Knight. Released on the same weekend four years ago, the film was an overwhelming critical and box-office succes grossing $533 million, domestically and a billion dollars worldwide. Even with all of that success, Nolan wasn’t sold on making a third film.

The perfectionist director announced that he had “cracked” the story of a sequel to The Dark Knight and was committed to returning to the project. Nolan developed a story with his brother Jonathan and David S. Goyer that he felt would conclude the series on a satisfactory note. While Goyer would leave the project during pre-production to begin work on Man of Steel; Jonathan continued writing the script based on the story by his brother Chris and Goyer.

The film’s storyline has been compared to the story arcs in the Batman comic book series Knightfall , which debuted the villain Bane; The Dark Knight Returns , in which Batman returns to Gotham City after a ten-year absence; and No Man’s Land, which depicts Gotham being overrun by gangs.

Check out a myriad of film posters, studio released and fan made, celebrating the tremendous accomplishment of Nolan, whose trilogy is largely responsible for the renaissance that comic superhero films are enjoying in Hollywood.

Of course, The Dark Knight Rises opens on July 20th!!!