Drew McWeeny at Hitfix has a massive spoilerific exclusive for The Dark Knight Rises today, something that I'm not sure Christopher Nolan truly had any chance of keeping under-wraps in all honesty, no matter how tight security is on the Batman movies. This is a big spoiler after the jump, so make sure you are prepared for knowing what you are about to learn but can never be unlearned. You have been warned; Ever since The Hollywood Reporter broke the news in February that Talia Ah Ghul would appear in The Dark Knight Rises we've figured that the character's father, Ra's Al Ghul, memorably played by Liam Neeson in Batman Begins, would make a return to once again torment Bruce Wayne. This despite the character apparently dying on the train at the end of Batman Begins but as I've said for the past five years, Nolan was smart enough to leave the villain's fate somewhat ambiguous, leaving it plausible that the character COULD have survived and brought back for a future film if required. Then on April 9th when Nolan cast The Social Network actor Josh Pence to play a young Ra's Al Ghul in flashback scenes, the idea that Nolan was planning on tieing The Dark Knight Rises thematically with Batman Begins was undeniable and the cat was out of the bag then, in truth. Then we saw what I still believe is the Lazarus Pit and that was that, we all knew this was coming. Drew McWeeny has confirmed that on Monday actor Liam Neeson turned up on set of The Dark Knight Rises and shot a scene in front of camera's. By Tuesday night he was in New York attending the Broadway premiere of a revamped Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark performance, so if his time on the new Batman movie is over, clearly it's going to be a short but we can expect memorable cameo. It would have been cool if Warner Bros. could have kept the cameo under-wraps all the way to the July 2012 release but alas, it wasn't to be. A poll I ran in April asking OWF readers whether they would welcome a Liam Neeson/Ra's Al Ghul return yielded a 70% (447 votes) majority in favour, 21% (143 votes) who weren't and 8% (55 votes) who weren't sure. Would love to hear have you feel about it now. As I wrote a few months ago... Im sure many of our readers will be surprised that director Chris Nolan, an advocate of realism with his Batman movies to date has seemingly gone down the supernatural route with the Lazarus Pit but the hints were there with Batman Begins if you look closely and HELL, lets not forget he made The Prestige! That movie toyed with what is real and what isnt, blending the two together in a movie full of mystical wonder. Lets not forget David Bowies Tesla made a duplicating electrical cloning device that Im pretty certain he never really invented so Nolan has been known to go a little sci-fi-y. Will Ras tell Batman he has found a way to bring people back to life, his appearance in the film being the proof to Bruce Wayne that people can be brought back from the dead? For someone who avengers the childhood death of his parents everyday of his life, thats a powerful weapon for Ras to use against Bruce Wayne. The Dark Knight Rises is currently filming for a release July 20, 2012. In a minor update compared to this story, Batman on Film reader Voorheedalek told the site of interesting filming that has taken place at Stansted Airport in the U.K;
I just got back from Stanstead airport in the UK where Chris Nolan and crew were filming what appeared to be an airport baggage check-in. Whether it's a plot point or not (I suspect maybe not), the airline was Delta and the destinations on the boards were for Paris. I couldn't stay around, only seeing Nolan, but 'apparently' Bale and Hathaway were due to appear. This scene, for all I know, could only ammount to several seconds of film.