20 Things You Didn't Know About Batman Begins
12. Christian Bale And Liam Neeson Could Have Drowned
Christopher Nolan is one of the few film directors who has a reputation for shooting ahead of schedule. The opening scene on the plane in The Dark Knight Rises was so complex, Nolan thought it would take a week to film. He managed to shoot the whole thing in two days.
The crazy thing is that Nolan's gift for shooting scenes quickly and efficiently may have saved the lives of Christian Bale and Liam Neeson on Batman Begins. In one scene, Neeson's character, Henri Ducard AKA Ra's Al Ghul, is training Bruce Wayne on a frozen lake. It usually takes a few days to film a complex fight but the director had to shoot this entire scene in one day. If the ice in the lake melted before the fight was filmed, Nolan would have to abandon the footage and choreograph a new fight in a different location.
In the last few moments of filming this scene, Bale and Neeson heard the ice below them cracking. Thankfully, they finished their scene without incident. The next day, the ice had completely melted.