We love McG here at HeyUGuys mainly because he recently serenaded Ben on the red carpet at the premiere of his new movie and it made us laugh a lot! This video below could probably go down as one of the most random videos we’ve ever posted on HeyUGuys. It was so random that I thought it needed to go up! While searching for videos on YouTube for This Means War, I can across this rather crazy footage which basically shows director McG and one of the stars of the film Tom Hardy dropping their pants (in the English sense of the word) and getting shot in the bum with paintball guns!

It was obviously part of a dare and it’s interesting to see that neither Chris Pine nor Reese Witherspoon joined the two crazy blokes in the fun! One thing it does show is that McG is obviously a man that you want to have around if you’re up for a bit of fun on set and also that Tom Hardy is up for anything.

I’d give some caution that this video is probably NSFW and contains swearing but is a rather funny watch as it shows two famous people having a lot of fun!

This Means War is released March 2nd and if you missed it yesterday, here’s nine minutes of the film for you to watch. We also have interviews with Reese, McG and Chris Pine from the UK premiere and we’ll have a more in-depth video with McG nearer the release of the movie.

Enjoy!

With rumours of another film from the series in the air and a well-deserved Oscar nod for Gary Oldman now is a good time to revisit Tomas Alfredson’s adaptation of John LeCarre’s Tinker Tailor Solider Spy.

The story is no stranger to the small screen with the Alec Guinness fronted BBC series being, until now, the definitive version. Alfredson’s film is a meticulously crafted and intriguing thriller, taut in execution and bold in its refusal to sex up its dossier.

This is a superficially complex story of deceit and betrayal, told with confidence and benefitting from an exceptional cast and in revisiting the film there is a real sense of the depth of emotion in this collection of lonely men who are fighting what seems like an endless war against an oncoming network of internal and external enemies. If you want a more in-depth look at the film you can check out my review from last year.

Oldman’s Smiley is a masterclass of the understated leading man and watching the film for the second time you become aware of the delicacy of his movements and the deep well of emotions which briefly break the surface (two clear examples are the Christmas party and the arrogance of a high ranking MP) and it is a powerful performance which rewards further viewings.

A key indicator of the well told nature of le Carre’s story is the enjoyment to be had even though you know from the beginning who the mole is. Partially this is because everyone, even Smiley, knows in their hearts who the man at the centre of the betrayal but also because the mystery is so well revealed that you hang on every slight development.

Maria Djurkovic’s evocative production design, itself something of an awards magnet, is a treat on the Blu-ray, with its plethora of detail every bit as important in immersing us in this world as Jacqueline Durran’s costume work or Hoyte Van Hoytema’s cinematography. The world is so dutifully created, with great skill, that it fades into the background as the story takes hold though without the explicit attention to period detail the film wouldn’t work nearly as well.

It’s rare that a cast is as uniformly this good, particularly with such a sizeable ensemble, with Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy impressing in particular, and each subsequent viewing is a rewarding experience. In taking us back in time once again Alfredson’s maturation as a director is evident in his ability to inspire his actors to surrender any sense of ego to the story. Despite the complex nature of the plot there’s a wealth of character here and it is their revelation, as much as that of the spy within, that is the film’s triumph.

****~ (4/5)

Extras:

It’s a well stocked affair with the usual back-slapping interviews giving a genuine sense of affection for the film and the people involved. There are a number of small featurettes focusing on a character or the institutions but the real meat is to be found in the sections devoted to le Carre and the interviews with the main cast. Each redoubles the enjoyment of the film and what comes across is partly where the film is at its best – that there is a great deal of unseen and necessary depth to the film.

***~~ (3/5)

Following all of the recent images of the upcoming LEGO renditions of The Lord of the Rings films, we’ve now got another great set of images for toy-ified versions of the characters from the Nolan brothers’ conclusion to their Batman trilogy with The Dark Knight Rises.

*Potential spoiler warning* I don’t know whether these toys directly relate to what happens in the film, so if you want to fly fairly blind when it hits cinemas this summer, look away now.

A handful of terrific images have surfaced for the new toys over at Hero Complex, via Collider, in which we get a look at the adorable little figures for Bane and Catwoman, both with super-large, adorable eyes that you just can’t help but fall in love with. The Batman toy seems to come from a different set to the Bane and Catwoman figures, with Mattel making the former, and Funko making the vinyl POP! Heroes figures of the latter.

Directed by Christopher Nolan from a script by Nolan and his brother Jonathan, from a story by the director and David S. Goyer, The Dark Knight Rises of course brings back the familiar faces of Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, and Michael Caine, with a terrific set of actors joining the cast for the final film, including Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Juno Temple, Josh Pence, and Joey King

The Dark Knight Rises will be with us in cinemas on 20^th July, and is naturally set to be one of the summer’s biggest blockbusters, if not the biggest film of the year. You can catch up on all the rest of our coverage for the film here, including the latest and first full-length trailer that dropped at the end of last year. As usual with these new images for the ridiculously cute toys, you can click to enlarge. How much do you want Bane and Catwoman to just be stood on your desk?

Last night saw the UK premiere of This Means War, the spy-action-rom-com-bromance starring Chris Pine, Tom Hardy and Reese Witherspoon, and we braved the cold weather and the gangs of dispossessed posh people marauding around Kensington to cover the event.

You may have already seen the clip from the video where McG serenades me. Remarkably that wasn’t even the first time that had happened that day. In addition to the full interview with McG, where we spoke about his hopes for the movie, the influence the Bond franchise and Oceans 11 have had on the film, and the ‘R’-rating it originally received in the US.

We also spoke with Chris Pine about the relationship between the male leads in the film, and got a quick snippet from Reese Witherspoon about the appeal of This Means War, and her love of small dramatic movies.

Check out the interview below, and check back in a few weeks time for our interview with McG. This Means War is released March 2nd.

Here’s something you don’t see every day! Last night, Ben Mortimer and Colin Hart attended the UK premiere of This Means War in Kensington, London (see their full report including interviews with Reese Witherspoon and Chris Pine shortly) and ended up being serenaded by the film’s director.

This footage shows what sort of atmosphere was on the carpet last night as Ben Mortimer’s dreams came true as the Terminator Salvation Director, McG decided to sing Michael Jackson’s song ‘Ben’ to him on the spot!

I’ll say no more but watch on and enjoy!

Note: This contains one little swear word

This Means War is released in the UK March 2nd.

To mark the release of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy on DVD and Blu-ray this Monday, 30th January, Studio Canal have given us five copies to give away on Blu-ray Double-Play.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy finds George Smiley (Gary Oldman), a recently retired MI6 agent, doing his best to adjust to a life outside the secret service. However, when a disgraced agent reappears with information concerning a mole at the heart of the service, Smiley is drawn back into the murky field of espionage. Tasked with investigating which of his trusted former colleagues has chosen to betray him and their country, Smiley narrows his search to four suspects – all experienced, skilled and successful agents – but past histories, rivalries and friendships make it far from easy to pinpoint the man who is eating away at the heart of the British establishment.

An acting masterclass from the crème de la crème of British film (Colin Firth (The King’s Speech), Tom Hardy (Inception), Mark Strong (Kick Ass), Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock) and inspired direction from Let the Right One In’s Tomas Alfredson make this gripping and tense adaptation of John le Carré’s classic spy novel essential viewing.

DVD Extras: Commentary with Gary Oldman & director Tomas Alfredson / John Le Carré interview / deleted scenes

Blu-Ray extras: Commentary with Gary Oldman & director Tomas Alfredson / John Le Carré interview / deleted scenes / Smiley featurette / ‘Inside The Circus’ featurette / Shadow World featurette / Interview with Gary Oldman / Interview with Colin Firth / Interview with Tom Hardy / Interview with Director Tomas Alfredson & screenwriter Peter Straughan / UK premiere featurette / Sky Movies featurette / Photo gallery / Trailers

To be in with a chance of winning the prize, simply head to the next page to answer the question using the form.

Here’s the UK poster for Chris Pine, Tom Hardy and Reece Witherspoon’s new movie, This Means War which hits UK cinemas 17th February. It’s directed by McG who recently brought us Terminator Salvation. If you missed the trailer for the movie, you can have a little watch here. I’m not too sure what to make of it if I’m honest. It could well prove to be good harmless fun and time will no doubt tell.

Two of the world’s top secret agents are best friends who never let anything come between them — until they inadvertently fall for the same woman.  It’s all-out war, as the two spies battle each other with high-tech surveillance, advanced tactics, and an arsenal capable of bringing down a small country.

This poster is (I think) the same as the previous teaser poster that we saw a while back except this time it’s in colour and has a QR code.

Click the poster to make it grow big and scroll down for a new 60 second TV spot.

Ever since the release of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome in 1985 cult film fans the world over have been waiting for George Miller to follow through on his promise to continue the saga.

25 years on and just as filming was about to start Australia had other ideas and the shoot got rained off as their once arid location picked for its distinct ‘apocalyptic hell-hole’ look suddenly sprouted some startlingly un-apocalyptic flowers on a brand new carpet of grass. A year on and filming of Mad Max Fury Road has moved to Africa where the weather gods are a little more kind to the dystopian film maker.

In order to do this many of the film’s principal props have had to be shipped over from their original location. Happily this includes many of the ridiculous custom-made cars that will pepper the wasteland, cars presumably fuelled exclusively by testosterone, baby’s tears and the concept of hate:

Other photos were snapped on the back of loaders taking the cars to storage in South Africa that depict several copies of Max’s famed ‘Interceptor’, his coupe of choice from the original movies. My guess is that they won’t meet a pleasant end:

Whilst they are surely a mechanic’s dream and/or nightmare, it’s all very encouraging for the future of the franchise. After struggling for so long to take the new film into production it looks like things are definitely being given the go ahead. If all goes to plan the cars here could be hitting a screen near you sometime in the near future along with new Max Tom Hardy and his prospective co-stars Charlize Theron and Nicholas Hoult. I for one can’t wait.

Source: The Age

As much as I’m looking forward to the 20th of July (it’s my birthday) I fully expect every cinema in the land to be packed to the veritable rafters with eager Batfans taking their final dance with the Nolanesque caped crusader.

The slow drip of info and images continues today as three new pictures from The Dark Knight Rises have come to light. Taken from EW.com, the standout image is of Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon in the Batcave (?) but there’s Bane enough in the other two pics for fans of Mr. Hardy.

Dave posted another new image from the film earlier today, of Christian Bale’s Batman breaking down in huge peals of laughter. See that one here.

Rather liking this new image of Christian Bale in his Batman suit as the times draws closer to the day that The Dark Knight Rises hits our screens. It’s potentially the most anticipated movie of 2012 and the hype will continue to build from now until it’s released on July 18th.

The new image sits on the cover of Entertainment Weekly which also has interviews with Bale on his role and Director Christopher Nolan and SlashFilm have snippets of the interviews which I’ve placed below:

Bale:

I can tell you the truth because I’m done with it: I felt immense pressure. And I think it’s a good pressure, because you owe it to the films — and the people’s expectations — to make great work.

Nolan:

I think when people see the film, things will come into focus. Bane is very complex and very interesting and when people see the finished film people will be very entertained by him.

Have to say, I’m very excited for this movie. The trailer was pretty epic and I can’t wait for the second theatrical to be released ahead of the movie.

The Dark Knight Rises stars Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman.

Synopsis: Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ “The Dark Knight Rises” is the epic conclusion to filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, Leading an all-star international cast, Oscar(R) winner Christian Bale (“The Fighter”) again plays the dual role of Bruce Wayne/Batman. The film also stars Anne Hathaway, as Selina Kyle; Tom Hardy, as Bane; Oscar(R) winner Marion Cotillard (“La Vie en Rose”), as Miranda Tate; and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as John Blake. Returning to the main cast, Oscar(R) winner Michael Caine (“The Cider House Rules”) plays Alfred; Gary Oldman is Commissioner Gordon; and Oscar(R) winner Morgan Freeman (“Million Dollar Baby”) reprises the role of Lucius Fox. The screenplay is written by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan, story by Christopher Nolan & David S. Goyer. The film is produced by Emma Thomas, Christopher Nolan and Charles Roven, who previously teamed on “Batman Begins” and the record-breaking blockbuster “The Dark Knight.” The executive producers are Benjamin Melniker, Michael E. Uslan, Kevin De La Noy and Thomas Tull, with Jordan Goldberg serving as co-producer. The film is based upon characters appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. Batman was created by Bob Kane.

Source: EW via SlashFilm

They say that the cream always rises to the top and that seems to be the case for Tom Hardy. Having plied his trade in an inferior Star Trek sequel (Nemesis) and a left-of-mainstream biopic (Bronson) he is now picking up bigger and bigger profile roles. With an utterly impressive co-lead performance under his belt for Warrior and an eye-catching supporting role in Nolan’s Inception, Hardy now has The Dark Knight Rises and the altogether very different This Means War for us in 2012.

Bigger and more prominent lead roles were always going to come his way eventually and so now proves to be the case, with news that Hardy is set to play one of the most iconic American gangsters of all time, Al Capone. Cicero, potentially a trilogy showing the rise, reign and fall of Al Capone, has been penned by Walon Green, with David Yates looking at re-writes before taking up the director’s reins. In contrast to Hardy’s exacting physical preparation for Bronson, Warrior and Batman, he has been doing more cerebral research for Cicero, boning up on the classic films of the Warner Bros gangster cycle:-

“I’ve been working with Warner Bros., watching their gangster films — the ones with James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson. The idea isn’t to remake those films but to get a flavour of them as we explore Capone’s career as a racketeer. The idea at the moment is of doing a trilogy of films, but nothing is set. Everyone is just talking and exploring.”

Hardy has apparently caught up with “The Petrified Forest”, “The Public Enemy”, “Little Caesar” and “The Roaring Twenties”, an utterly worthwhile exercise regardless, but especially in order to get under the skin of Prohibition-era racketeering. Whether he will follow in the footsteps of Robert De Niro (The Untouchables) and Rod Steiger (Al Capone) and put on a bit of girth for the role remains to be seen. WB want to hold their horses a little, waiting to see how Hardy comes off in TDKR before formally greenlighting this one, though for my money he has given all of the evidence he needs to of his leading-man credentials, with a reworking of Mad Max on his schedule for 2012 as well.

We will let you know as this one develops further.

Source: Indie Wire

Starring Tom Hardy (Inception, Warrior, The Dark Knight Rises), Deserter is a tension-packed war thriller set during Algeria’s bloody fight for independence. It comes to DVD on 23^rd January and to mark it’s release, we have 3 copies to give away!

Based on a true story, a young Englishman, Simon Murray (Paul Fox), joins the French Foreign Legion.  His idealistic illusions are soon shattered when he encounters his fellow recruits, including Dupont (Hardy), who have all volunteered to escape a past far less innocent than his own.

After a sadistic training regime, the fully-fledged Legionnaires set out to do battle and face deadly fire fights, ambushes and danger at every turn.  But soon, a change of allegiance threatens to tear loyalties apart and turn comrade against comrade. As Murray and Dupont now stand on opposite sides, who will become the hero and who will be the deserter?

To be in with a chance of winning this, proceed to the next page and answer the question using the form…

UPDATE: After speaking with various people attached to The Dark Knight Rises and seeing Steve’s article on Collider, the update to this story below is that it was wrong. The files that were given to IMAX were different files but were the exact same version of the visuals and audio mix so we can confirm that Warner Bros. haven’t changed a thing on Bane’s voice or anything else for that matter.

Clear as mud!

————————–

When some fans were treated to a six-minute prologue of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises on select IMAX screens last month, the thing that got people talking the most about was that Bane’s (Tom Hardy) dialogue was very hard to understand.

However, Nolan recently commented that he had no plans to rework Bane’s dialogue, despite the fact that complaint was universal and that fans seemed to be very concerned about the matter. He said he wasn’t opposed to “altering the sounds slightly” but he refused to “rework it completely.”

A source has now told Collider that Warner Bros. has sent out a new audio mix for The Dark Knight Rises prologue to IMAX theaters. But the dialogue hasn’t been reworked as was original reported, it has only been slightly cleaned up to make Bane’s dialogue much easier to understand.

The source said: “A friend of mine who is an IMAX projectionist told me they received a new soundtrack for the Dark Knight Rises prologue. He said it’s now a combo soundtrack with Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, but the cool thing about this is that they’ve cleaned up the dialogue. They’ve gone in and lowered the background noise of the plane and other things, thus making Bane’s dialogue clearer and more understandable. He asked some people after they left the movie if they could understand Bane and they all said they had no issue understanding him, and were excited for the movie.”

So Nolan seems to be sticking to his original statement saying that he will not be reworking Bane’s dialogue, but at least he’s done something to the help the audience enjoy the film without having to concentrate solely on trying to decipher Bane’s muffled words.

When asked how much clearer Bane’s dialogue is now compared to when we first heard it, the source said: “40-50%, because he’s no longer being overpowered by the background noise that drowned him out before.”

The Dark Knight Rises also stars Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Gary Oldman, and is set to be released on 20th July.

*Spoiler Warning* If you want to stay spoiler-free for the Nolan brothers’ epic conclusion to their Batman trilogy, you may want to look away now.

This month, we’ve seen some terrific new things from next year’s The Dark Knight Rises, one of the most highly anticipated films of 2012, including the awesome first character poster of Bane, and of course, the first trailer that was really quite good. And by that, I of course mean it was incredible.

The plot of Christopher and Jonathan Nolan’s conclusion to their trilogy is being kept under wraps, and there’s very little that we know about it for sure. There now comes a new description for a scene from the film, via Hero Complex and Collider, and here is your spoiler warning once again.

I’m personally all for the secrecy, and so whilst I did watch the trailer, I’m steering clear of this scene description below (and so will just paste it below without reading it myself), but I’m sure there will be plenty of people who will relish the chance to read it. Given that I’ve not read it, I can only relay that it’s meant to be spoiler-ful, and so if you want to stay relatively the dark too, look away now.

“Gotham City is a war zone. A ruthless madman named Bane has ripped away any sense of security and the citizens, haggard and clutching suitcases with refugee anxiety, sit behind barbed wire waiting to see what will blow up next. A hooded prisoner is dragged in – it’s Bruce Wayne, one of Gotham’s most famous faces – but the eyes of the crowd go instead to the woman in black standing at the top of the staircase.

“Sorry to spoil things, boys, but Bane needs these guys himself,” says sultry Selina Kyle, played here by actress Anne Hathaway, navigating the steps with stiletto heels that, on closer inspection, turn out to have serrated edges capable of leaving nasty claw marks in a fight. She also wears high-tech goggles that, when not in use, flip up and resemble feline ears.”

Christian Bale will of course be reprising his role as the Dark Knight, alongside Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine, with Tom Hardy joining the cast as the notorious Bane, along with Nolan’s Inception stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard, Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Juno Temple, and Josh Pence.

The Dark Knight Rises will be coming to the big screen next summer on 20^th July, and judging by what we’ve seen so far, it’s going to be incredible. I could naturally be proven wrong, but I have a feeling that everything we have seen so far (all of which you can catch up on here) hardly scratches the surface with what we can look forward to next year. I think the Nolan brothers will be keeping plenty secret right up until the film reaches cinemas, and I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

Well, it is Christmas time and all I want for Christmas is a Dark Knight trailer, a Hobbit trailer and a Prometheus trailer… oh and some new images from The Dark Knight Rises!

Well, we can source most of these for you and in a few hours, we’ll also have a nice shiny new trailer for Ridley Scott’s Prometheus but to tide us over (it’s now here!) while we wait, here’s some nice new images from The Dark Knight Rises. We’ve seen most of them before but they’ve always been obscured by a magazine cover or been low res. Now they are nice and high, especially the one of Christian ‘Christmas’ Bale shooting his taser!

The Dark Knight Rises will be with us summer 2012, is directed by Christopher Nolan and stars Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Josh Pence, Marion Cotillard, Juno Temple, Liam Neeson, Cillian Murphy.

Click them below to enlarge:

Yesterday Warner Brothers released a new trailer for The Dark Knight Rises; the internet went mental and collectively spewed opinion over message boards everywhere.

Responses ranged from the bad to the rabidly stark raving good but one solid piece of criticism that could be distilled from all of the fawning chaos was that people were just not happy with Bane’s voice.

Firstly with the six-minute prologue that was shown to but a few and now with the universally available trailer, Tom Hardy’s villain has been adjudged to be a bit incomprehensible. Be it the muffle from his mask or the Englishness of his enunciation, people just aren’t loving it. Or more importantly understanding it.

One would think therefore that with such a fuss about so little director Christopher Nolan would just listen to the Warner executives and fix the sound mix. But never one to concede easily Nolan is digging his cinematically accomplished heels in and has stated that he will only concede “to alter the sound slightly, not to rework it completely.”

You could just say (as I think I did at the start of the article, silly me) that it’s just some Batfans kicking up a fuss about the English voices again. We could shake our fists at them and say “you can just bally well get on with it!” but it’s not the 50’s and I’ve got to say that I didn’t get on that well with Bane’s voice either. While Heath Ledger’s Joker was eminently quotable and readily meme-worthy I can’t see Bane’s repeated invocations of “murrrmuhaaa beffffuhu” catching on.

Regarding Nolan’s decision a ‘high level studio exec’ told The Hollywood Reporter “Chris wants the audience to catch up and participate rather than push everything at them. He doesn’t dumb things down,” and that “You’ve got to pedal faster to keep up.” But there’s pedalling faster and then there is not being able to pedal at all. If Bane does turn out to be as incomprehensible as everyone seems to think it’s just going to harm the film. A case of David’s unintelligible voice taking down Goliath if you will.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Batfans rejoice, there’s a new trailer for Christopher Nolan’s final Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises, out today.

Those people who are joining Tom Cruise for another Mission Impossible in certain IMAX screens will have their chance to see the short prologue for the film, which is rumoured to divulge the origins of Batman’s latest nemesis Bane, played by Tom Hardy and glimpsed in a thousand set pictures.

The viral winds have already started to kick up around this film, and as it’s Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros. you can bet that there will be all sorts of information hunts and wild goose chases until the film is out, you can see the opening salvo in the campaign here and here, so it’s nice that there’s something substantial following from the teaser we saw a few months ago.

Source: Apple – Click to view in HD

In the past week, we’ve seen the ad campaign for Christopher and Jonathan Nolan’s final instalment in their Batman trilogy take an interesting new turn with the release of three documents regarding a man by the name of Dr. Leonid Pavel.

We’ve also been granted our first, ridiculously incredible Bane character poster for the film, and are expecting the film’s first full-length trailer to come any day now – with any luck, tomorrow.

The folk over at SuperHeroHype, via ComingSoon.net, have been treated to an awesome package adding to the film’s advertising campaign, and they’ve been nice enough to upload a few photos of what arrived for them in the mail: an awesome Bane t-shirt (which we should all be jealous of), and a cylindrical map of Gotham City upon which is written five strike zones. Whether we can take the zones on the map to be true to the film itself is of course a different question entirely, and one we’ll probably be debating until the film’s release next summer. In case you don’t want to take a look, I won’t spoil it for you, but some of the locations targeted sound like they’d make for epic battle scenes if they are true to the film.

The Nolan brothers look to be going all out for this final instalment and are sure to be bringing us something absolutely immense with The Dark Knight Rises. The tagline on the Bane poster we saw just a few days ago, ‘The Legend Ends’, is just so damn perfect; this really is going to be an epic conclusion.

Christian Bale​ will be reprising his role as the Dark Knight, alongside Gary Oldman​, Morgan Freeman​, and Michael Caine​, with Tom Hardy​ joining the cast as the notorious Bane, along with Nolan’s Inception stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt​ and Marion Cotillard​, Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Juno Temple​, and Josh Pence.

The film’s six-minute prologue has had a few select screenings here and across the Atlantic, and you can read our review of those first six minutes here, and catch up with everyone else Batman-related right here. Without further ado, here are those all-important shots of the Bane t-shirt and the Bane Strike Map. As usual, click to enlarge. Can you imagine waking up to something so cool in your mail?

If ever there were a poster to guarantee itself as deserving a spot on your wall, this is the one. Christopher and Jonathan Nolan’s conclusion to their Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, is sure to be one of 2012’s biggest films – and it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to predict it making the Top 10 list of all-time highest grossing films, a list in which its predecessor, 2008’s The Dark Knight, currently sits – and everything that we’ve seen from the film so far points to an immense finale.

In the past few days, we’ve seen the film’s advertising campaign move into a new direction with the release first of two documents, followed yesterday by a third, with rumours surfacing that the release of the full-length trailer was imminent.

Sadly, that wasn’t to be last night, but we’ve now got an utterly epic poster to share with you for the film now instead, via ComingSoon.net, with the perfect tagline, ‘The Legend Ends’. We got the film’s absolutely brilliant first poster back in July, followed swiftly by the first teaser trailer, which was every bit as awesome as the poster. This new poster definitely maintains that high level of brilliance, and given the amazing posters that Nolan put out for his last film, Inception, I’d be willing to bet that we’ve got more incredible posters to look forward to in the campaign to promote The Dark Knight Rises.

Christian Bale will be reprising his role as the Dark Knight, alongside Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine, with Tom Hardy joining the cast as the notorious Bane, along with Nolan’s Inception stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard, Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Juno Temple, and Josh Pence.

Plot details are being kept under wraps, and this new poster will almost certainly set off a huge spark among fans as to what we can expect from it – we see Bane walking away in the pouring rain from a shattered Batman mask. Oh wow.

The Dark Knight Rises will be hitting cinemas on 20th July next summer, and I think we can all agree that we should all agree right now to clear our calendars for that day to make sure we see it at the first possible opportunity, because it’s going to be incredible. Without further ado, feast your eyes upon this amazing first poster of Bane. As usual, click to enlarge, and give yourself even more awesomeness to soak up.

[Updated] Just two days ago, we saw The Dark Knight Rises’ promotional campaign take a turn in a new direction with the release of two documents related to the film, regarding an unknown character, Dr. Leonid Pavel, which is already sparking much discussion on the Internet as to what the documents mean.

A third document has surfaced over at @thefirerises, with thanks to Empire for the tip-off, that continues the information that we saw from the first two documents, talking now about the exfiltration of Dr. Pavel, under the code name, Operation Early Bird, which in turn points us to this website. As the document notes, the exfiltration is set to take place at 1000 hours PST, which is 6pm on our time here in the UK. The Operation Early Bird site has a countdown that will run down at exactly 6pm tonight, so be sure to check back here to see what happens when the clock reaches zero!

It’s thought that we’ll be treated to the film’s first full-length trailer when it does, which is definitely an exciting possibility. We got the film’s first teaser back in July, and it was absolutely brilliant, and you just know that getting a full-length look at Christopher Nolan’s conclusion to his Batman trilogy is going to be immense. The film itself is going to be nothing short of incredible, no doubt about that.

Christian Bale will of course be reprising his role as the Dark Knight, alongside Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine, with Tom Hardy joining the cast as the notorious Bane, along with Nolan’s Inception stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard, Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Juno Temple, and Josh Pence.

The Dark Knight Rises will be hitting the big screen on 20^th July, and is naturally expected to be one of the biggest and best films of the year, and I can’t wait for the trailer to hit when the clock reaches 6 tonight. Be sure to check back in then. Without further ado, here’s the third document released as part of the new campaign. As usual, click to enlarge. And if you want a re-cap of everything we’ve seen so far, just click right here.

[Update:] Alas, we sadly weren’t treated to our first look at the trailer last night, as we were all hoping we would be. Instead, the Operation Early Bird site listed free screenings of the six-minute prologue for the film, which they’ll be playing in Manchester, Glasgow, Bradford, and London, on 14th December, ahead of the film’s release next summer. With any luck, we’ll be treated to that highly anticipated trailer very soon, and you can be sure we’ll be bringing it to you as soon as it hits.