Trivia

After seeing his performance in Thank You for Smoking, Christopher Nolan thought that Aaron Eckhart would be perfect for the role of District Attorney Harvey Dent.

The false title given to the film during production, Rory's First Kiss, was named after Christopher Nolan's son, Rory. When filming began in April 2007, the production was code-named to thwart onlookers and trespassers. All over downtown Chicago, fliers were posted with this pseudonym (alongside an "RFK" logo) and also listed the address for the film's production offices.

Actor/musician Dwight Yoakam turned down two different roles in this film. One was for the part of Det. Wuertz (later played by Ron Dean), as well as the small part of the Gotham National Bank manager (portrayed by William Fichtner) featured at the very beginning.

One of the featured extra's military uniforms bears the name Philo. This is a nod to Joan Philo, the Illinois-based casting director for extras.

In preparation for his role as The Joker, Heath Ledger hid away in a motel room for about six weeks. During this extended stay of seclusion, Ledger delved deep into the psychology of the character. He devoted himself to developing The Joker's every tic, namely the voice and that sadistic-sounding laugh (for the voice, Ledger's goal was to create a tone that didn't echo the work Jack Nicholson did in his 1989 performance as the Joker). Ledger's interpretation of The Joker's appearance was primarily based on the chaotic, disheveled look of punk rocker Sid Vicious combined with the psychotic mannerisms of Malcolm McDowell's character, Alex De Large, from A Clockwork Orange.

For the first time in feature filmmaking, IMAX cameras were utilized. Christopher Nolan had wanted to shoot in the IMAX format for years, thus using this film as his opportunity to do so. Six major action-heavy sequences, along with various high-altitude shots, were filmed on the IMAX ratio. (These sequences are available on the Bonus Disc of the 2-Disc DVD Edition.)

Elaborate, interactive marketing campaigns were launched in the months leading up to the release of this film. One of these was an event at the 2007 San Diego Comic-con called Why So Serious, which involved fans following clues hidden around the city. The legions of Joker-painted fans ended up congregating in the street across from the convention center, where one of their numbers was welcomed into a black Escalade (with Gotham license plates) that had just pulled up. After a moment the fan started screaming and the SUV sped away. Later that day, a Gotham City newspaper was circulated reporting that a man believed to be the Joker was found beaten to death. Included were crime scene photos of the fan who had gotten into the Escalade, and a mention that he was found with a playing card in his hand, on which was scribbled "See you in December."

Heath Ledger's sudden death on January 22, 2008 prompted immediate speculation over the film's state. Soon after Ledger's tragic passing was announced, Warner Bros. Pictures issued a statement that verified that Ledger had finished all of his scenes in principal photography, as well as post-production fulfillments (i.e., looping), thus making The Joker his final, completed film role.

Bruce Wayne develops and wears a new Batsuit in the film. This Batsuit was an improvement on the outfit from Batman Begins, and made Christian Bale more comfortable and agile in his performance. It was constructed from 200 unique pieces of rubber, fibreglass, metallic mesh, and nylon (producing an impression of sophisticated technology), with elastic banding added for tightening the costume to fit Bale. The gauntlets had their razors made retractable and able to be fired. The suit's cowl was based on a motorcycle helmet and separated from the neck piece, allowing Bale to move his head left/right/up/down, and comes equipped with white eye lenses for when Batman turns on Bat-sonar.

Once she knew Heath Ledger had been cast as The Joker, costume designer Lindy Hemming based the character's attire off of an eclectic line-up of clothing styles, ranging from Vivienne Westwood to John Lydon to Iggy Pop to Pete Doherty to Alexander McQueen. Hemming's aim was to modify The Joker's familiar appearance with "a younger, trendier look", in order to represent Ledger's generation.

Nestor Carbonell who plays the mayor coincidentally also played "Bat Manuel", a parody of Batman, in the comic-based live action The Tick TV series. And Michael Jai White who played the Batman-inspired character Spawn in Spawn plays a gangster.

David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan collaborated on the story of the film. The script itself was written by Nolan and his brother Jonathan Nolan. After watching 'The Dark Knight', Goyer stated "I can't believe my name is on a movie this good".

This film held the box-office record for the largest opening weekend of all time. It made $158,411,483 in its first weekend of release. Another superhero sequel, Spider-Man 3, set the record the previous summer. Dark Knight held it until the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 which had an opening weekend of $169,189,427, which was later beaten by The Avengers (another superhero movie) with $200.3 million. This is the fourth Batman movie to break the opening weekend record following Batman, Batman Returns, and Batman Forever.

With 4,366 locations, this film also holds the record for opening in the most venues on its release date. (Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End opened in 4,362 movie houses the previous summer.)

When it was released on July 18, 2008, this film made $67.2 million in a single day, the most lucrative opening for any film. Because of its pent-up demand, midnight showings all over the country were sold out, resulting in $18.5 million in late-night showings alone. The movie held the record for biggest one-day intake until The Twilight Saga: New Moon.

This film reached the $200 million mark in only 5 days, quickly achieving another box-office record. This jumped to $300 million on the 10th day, setting yet another record

While filming both the bank and police department scenes at the post office, an unrelated fire broke out in a top floor mechanical room and many onlookers believed that the smoke and fire was related to the filming.

Made more money than Batman Begins entire domestic run in only 6 days of release.

The first film to be ranked #1 on the IMDb within two days of its theatrical release.

Christian Bale got to keep the Batman mask from the movie, after filming. He wanted to keep the entire uniform but he did not have enough room for it.

The Joker's face paint was reportedly designed by Heath Ledger himself, who used white clown makeup and cosmetics from a drugstore. Once his design was approved, the makeup team was responsible for replicating the look each day for filming.

Takes place roughly nine months after Batman Begins ended.

Blood is only ever seen three times on-screen: on the face of the civilian Batman that the Joker hangs, on Harvey's pillow in the hospital, and on Batman's arm due to the dog attacking him; most of the violence either occurs off-screen or is obscured by camera angles.

The 70mm IMAX prints of the film each consisted of 45 reels, which once assembled, were roughly 9.5 miles long and weighed 450 pounds.

Voted #15 on Empire magazine's 500 Greatest Movies Of All Time (September 2008).

Other actors under consideration for the coveted role of Harvey Dent - pending Aaron Eckhart's availability - were Mark Ruffalo, Liev Schreiber, and Josh Lucas.

'The Dark Knight' on Blu-ray disc features the IMAX version of the film. Any sequence filmed with the IMAX cameras fills up a widescreen TV at a 1:78:1 ratio, thus giving a grander view from the top to bottom. The rest of the film plays at a 2:35:1 scope ratio which delivers a panoramic view. It is only on Blu-ray that the film can be watched this way as on a 4:3 TV the transition would be too jarring, however the IMAX sequences can be viewed as a special feature on the DVD version.

First Batman film with no live-action or CGI bats.

During the chase scene, when the Joker takes over driving the semi after his driver is killed, the bullet holes on the windshield form a smiley face.

The first Batman movie (both live action and animated) not to feature Bruce Wayne in a tuxedo.

39 vehicles are crashed, shot, blown up, bumped, or otherwise involved in some sort of violence in this film.

Hong Kong actor Edison Chen can be seen escorting Lucius Fox from the helicopter into the building, and later when the police goes in for the raid at Lau's office. The Hong Kong scene contains a scripted set piece where Batman drops into the harbor. However it was scrapped because environmental officials found out that the water was polluted.

This is the fourth time a film based on a comic has been nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. The others are Al Pacino for Dick Tracy, Paul Newman for Road to Perdition, and William Hurt for A History of Violence.

In the Italian version of Batman, Jack Nicholson's voice was dubbed by actor Giancarlo Giannini. In this movie, Heath Ledger was voiced by Giannini's son Adriano Giannini, with the result that Italian audience felt a connection between the two Jokers since the voices are very similar.

Heath Ledger directed both homemade videos that the Joker sends to GCN himself. The first video involving the fake Batman was done under Nolan's supervision. Nolan thought Ledger had done so well with that sequence, he felt there was no need for him to be there when it came time to film the scene where reporter Mike Engel reads the Joker's statement. He put his trust in Ledger and let him do whatever he wanted, ultimately pleased with the result after he'd seen the outcome.

While filming the chase scene with the Joker and the SWAT vans, one of only four IMAX cameras in the world at that time was destroyed.

On 20th February 2009, the movie became the 4th to have made more than $1 billion (US) worldwide.

Heath Ledger posthumously won a total of 32 Best Supporting Actor awards for his work on this film, including the Oscar, Golden Globe, BAFTA, SAG and Critics' Choice award. The only awards he was nominated for but didn't win were the Satellite Award (which went to Michael Shannon for Revolutionary Road) and the London Film Critics' Circle Award for actor of the year (which went to Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler).

In their face to face confrontations, neither Batman nor Joker refer to one another by name.

The first four days of scheduled shooting resulted in no film being rolled. Instead, Christopher Nolan screened two films for the cast and crew with a break in between. The eight films were (in order): Heat, Cat People, Citizen Kane, King Kong, Batman Begins, Black Sunday, A Clockwork Orange, and Stalag 17.

The Batman comic books The Long Halloween, The Killing Joke, The Man Who Laughs and the first two comics to feature the Joker character served as an influence on the film's storyline.

Both this film and its predecessor have one-word themes which are driving forces in the stories: Batman Begins centers around Fear, while the focus of 'The Dark Knight' is Chaos.

Cillian Murphy reprises his role as Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow from Batman Begins in this film. This makes him the first actor to reprise the role of a Batman villain in the whole film series.

Voted movie of the year by Empire magazine in 2008.

This film is seen by some critics as an allegory on the Bush Administration's prosecution of the "War on Terror" (Batman was willing to do "whatever it took" to bring in Joker - including torture and disregarding the law and civil liberties.) It should be noted in doing so, Batman could not see the Joker's true intentions (and real threat) with Two-Face being set loose and forced Batman into exile.

When Harvey Dent disarms the witness in court, he removes the magazine from the stock and holds it in his small finger. This is actually the correct procedure for emergency reloads and correcting malfunctions.

A video game adaptation was in production, but was canceled due to technical difficulties in development.

The music used in the trailers for this film was reused from the Batman Begins soundtrack.

When Harvey Dent is being transferred, his holding vehicle is attacked by The Joker with various guns. One gun is an RPG and a SWAT member is heard asking if it is a bazooka - which is a signature weapon of The Joker's girlfriend/partner in crime - Harley Quinn.

The only Batman movie where Batman does not use a batarang.

Bit actor Paul Birchard also acted in Tim Burton's Batman, making him one of the very few actors to have been in both Batman franchises.

The Joker (Heath Ledger) falling from the Prewitt building mirrors a scene from the very first Joker story in 'Batman' #1 (Spring, 1940) in which the Joker falls from a penthouse scaffolding, but is caught by the Batman.

The Joker's mouth cuts are reminiscent of the ones inflicted upon Elizabeth Short. The Black Dahlia, which Aaron Eckhart also appeared in, posited that those cuts were inspired by The Man Who Laughs, which was Bob Kane's inspiration for the Joker.

In the film, Bruce asks Lucius Fox for a new Batman suit with a head piece that is 'easier to look around in'. This is a comical reference to older Batman films in which the actors playing Batman wore a suit that had a solid head piece covering the head, neck and shoulders. This made it impossible for the actors to turn their heads and instead had to turn their entire torso to look at their targets. Bruce comments to Lucius, "It makes backing out of the driveway easier."

Michael Caine also appeared in Quicksand, opposite previous Batman Michael Keaton; Blood and Wine, opposite previous Joker Jack Nicholson; and The Fourth Protocol, opposite previous Alfred Michael Gough.

Aaron Eckhart is technically the third actor to play Harvey Dent/Two-Face in a feature film. Billy Dee Williams played a pre-disfigured Dent in Batman, but he didn't become Two-Face until Batman Forever, where Tommy Lee Jones took the role (in that film, Dent's transformation was briefly shown in a flashback where Batman tried to save him from Boss Maroni, and Harvey was already Two-Face at the beginning). This is the first Batman film to depict Two-Face's origin, starting with Harvey Dent as Gotham's district attorney and eventually becoming Two-Face.

Christian Bale admitted he did not pack on as much muscle weight for this film as he did for Batman Begins, in part due to keeping with the new Batsuit design, which is leaner and more flexible.

The lenses that cover Batman's eyes during the hostage rescue scene give him a look that's close to the comic book adaptations where Batman's eyes are often visible in the dark, while the rest of his body is blacked out.

During the Hong Kong action scene (to bring Lau back), Batman shoots time-bombs on the glass which has a time of 2:22 minutes. The bombs explode almost exactly after 2 minutes 20 seconds in real time, which shows that the action could happen in almost 2 minutes.

The character of Reese is an allusion to The Riddler, who attempts to reveal the identity of Batman. Much like Edward Nygma whose name sounds like "enigma" (as in E. Nygma), Mr. Reese sounds like "mysteries".

This was the highest grossing Batman movie, and in fact the highest grossing of any film adapting DC Comics characters. Both records were previously held by Batman.

Bruce Wayne references Ra's Al Ghul's teachings in his statement to Alfred (on The Joker) "Criminals aren't complicated Alfred".

Paul Bettany, Lachy Hulme, Adrien Brody, Steve Carell and Robin Williams all publicly expressed interest in playing the Joker, little knowing that Christopher Nolan always had Heath Ledger in mind.

Bob Hoskins and James Gandolfini auditioned for the part of Sal Maroni, a part that went to Eric Roberts.

Heath Ledger's Best Supporting Actor Oscar win marks the first time an Academy Award has been awarded in a major category to a comic book movie.

Many believe that one of the key reasons why the Academy moved from five Best Picture nominations to 10 was because two of the best received films of the year - The Dark Knight and WALL·E - were not among the five nominees.

Like its predecessor Batman Begins, there are no opening credits or titles.

Heath Ledger is the youngest actor to have played the Joker.

Patrick Leahy:  . the older gentleman that confronts the Joker at the party thrown by Bruce Wayne for Harvey Dent. Senator Leahy is a huge Batman fan and arranged an early showing of the movie on July 12th as a fund-raiser for the children's section of the Kellogg-Hubbard Library in Montpelier, Vermont, the state's capital. He has also appeared in Batman & Robin and as a Batman cartoon voice.

The film uses numerous elements of the Joker's first appearance in Batman #1, published in 1940. In both The Dark Knight and Batman #1, the Joker publicly announces his crimes before committing them, removes his make-up and disguises himself as a police officer to gain access to a person he threatened to kill, uses a powerful bomb smuggled into jail to escape, steals and kills not for personal gain but simply to create chaos and disorder, and infringes upon the city's old-fashioned mobsters.

Heath Ledger improvised when he started clapping inside his jail cell in a mocking and sardonic capacity as Gordon is promoted. The clapping was not scripted but Christopher Nolan immediately encouraged the crew to continue filming and the sequence was included in the film.

Composer James Newton Howard composed an elegant and beautiful score for Harvey Dent, which would serve as a jarring contrast to Two-Face's persona.

Early in the film, a witness on stand pulls a gun out on Harvey Dent (Two-Face) during the trial and tries to shoot him. This is a nod towards Two-Face's original origin story in the comics where in a similar trial scenario, crime boss Sal Maroni is on stand and throws sulfuric acid in Dent's face resulting in his scarring.

After his transformation, Two-Face flips his coin eight times. It comes up on the good side five times for the Joker, Sal Maroni, Detective Ramirez, Dent himself, Gordon's son (though Two-Face didn't catch that one) and the bad side three times, for Detective Wuertz, Maroni's driver and Batman.

There are at least two references to the fall of the Roman republic in the movie. The first is when Bruce meets Harvey at the restaurant and Harvey mentions how the Romans would offer unlimited power to a single citizen to guide them through a crisis. Rachel's character incorrectly states that the last person to get this mantle was Gaio Giulio Cesare - in actuality, Caesar coerced the Roman senate to give him this power. The second reference is when the Joker mentions the location of Harvey and Rachel. He says that Harvey was at 250 W 52st. The other address was Avenue X and Cicero. We know later that he was lying and that Harvey was located at Avenue X and Cicero as the final scene takes place where Harvey lost his loved one, namely, 250 W. 52 St. Cicero was the Rome's most famous orator and statesman, and was a vocal opponent against Caesar and tyranny. Furthermore, in ancient times Caesar represented chaos (as evidenced by Lucan's civil war - where Caesar invokes fortune or chance before he goes crosses the Rubicon and goes to war against Rome) much like the Joker or Harvey later on in this movie. The analogy then is that Harvey, the gifted statesman and orator, is put against chaos and chance and ultimately fails, only to become the villain. A third reference to the fall of the Roman republic is the fact that Jim Gordon, Harvey Dent and Batman form an agreement. In modern times the agreement to control the senate by Caesar, Pompey the Great, and Crassus (the financier of the venture) was known as the first triumvirate. Batman, Gordon, and Harvey are similarly trying to control Gotham. As mentioned above Harvey represents Cicero at first (the model citizen) and then Caesar when he becomes a villain. Gordon is Pompey, the aging general who is trying to do good, and thinks this is the only way how. Batman is Crassus, as he brings together and finances the venture.

Two-Face's disfigurement was created through computer graphics rather than prosthetic make-up, as director Christopher Nolan felt that, no matter how good the make-up was, it is still inherently adding something onto an actor's face, when Two-Face's appearance requires part of his face to be burned away.

The Joker says that Harvey is located at Avenue X and Cicero. Cicero is a prominent street in Chicago (where a lot of the movie was filmed) located at 4800 West (48 blocks from State Street).

When the Joker tells Batman where Harvey and Rachel are being held, both addresses have hidden meaning. 250 52nd Street sounds like 50/50, an allusion to Harvey's coin flipping. Avenue X and Cicero alludes to the fact that the Joker figured out that Rachel and "Batman" used to be an item (Avenue X (ex)).

The address 250 52nd Street where Rachel Dawes is killed, and where Harvey Dent brings Gordon's family is a palindrome: it's the same forwards as it is backwards. The way it's framed with a zero in the middle and the same numbers in opposite directions on either side suggests the opposite sides of Dent's favorite coin, the two sides of his face, and by extension the duality of his nature.

Christopher Nolan asked Aaron Eckhart not to perform any tics or slurping noises as Two-Face to make the character less "showy".

In one of the final scenes of the film where Harvey flips his coin for Batman, himself, and Gordon, the outcome of the flips foreshadows the future of each of the 3 characters. Batman received "Tails," the "bad" side; at the end of the film he asked Gordon to blame all of the city's troubles on him, resulting in the Batman's reputation being disgraced and scorned. On the other hand, both Gordon and Harvey received "Heads," the "good" side, and were both honored as heroes at the end of the film.

In the original Batman comics (specifically, Detective Comics #80, 1943) the surname of the plastic surgeon who attempts to repair Two-Face is "Ekhart". In this movie, Two-Face is, of course, played by Aaron Eckhart.

Bruce Wayne makes his final appearance in the film (out of the batsuit) a whole forty minutes before the end of the movie, when he is reacting to the sound of Gotham General Hospital exploding shortly after his car accident.