23 Facts About 'The Dark Knight' Only Diehard Batman Fans Will Know
Let's take a look back at one of the greatest Batman movies ever made.
Now that Ben Affleck has taken the mantle and Jared Leto wears the sinister smile of the Joker, let's review the second installment in Christoper Nolan's Batman trilogy.
It has been eight years since its release, but man do we still love this film.
Here are 23 interesting facts about the modern classic:
1. The Dark Knight is not the first Batman movie to reach $1 billion mark at the box-office
But it is the first comic book adaptation to hit that mark!
2. The movie is also the first Batman flick that doesn't have the word Batman in its title.
Let's see now — Batman, Batman Returns, Batman and Robin, Batman Begins and a whole lot more.
3. The movie is also the first Batman film to not contain any bats.
4. This is also the only Batman movie without a Batarang.
You were too busy admiring the Joker to notice, eh?
5. Lead actor, Christian Bale, did not pack on as many muscles for this movie as he did for Batman Begins.
That's because he wanted to rock the new Batsuit design, which is leaner and more flexible.
6. 39 vehicles were shot, damaged or blown up in this Batflick.
That's quite a lot of cars.
7. A total of 36 characters die in this film.
8. The date stamp on Commissioner Gordon's photo of the Joker taken during the bank heist reads "2008/07/18."
That date is also the US release date of the movie.
9. Heath Ledger is the youngest actor ever play the Joker.
He was only 27 during the filming.
10. Ledger also designed the Joker's makeup...
Using cosmetics from a drugstore and white clown foundation.
11. In one scene, you can see a smiley face made of bullet holes.
You can find it during the chase scene when the Joker is driving a semi.
12. Ledger continually sucked his mouth and licked his lips during the filming.
That's an old habit of his, but he did more of it during his performance to make himself look more psychotic.
13. Ledger wore a name tag that says Matilda during his nurse scene.
Matilda is the name of his daughter.
14. Ledger's interpretation of the Joker...
is based on Malcolm McDowells's character in A Clockwork Orange as well as punk rock bad boy, Sid Vicious from the Sex Pistols.
15. Another Sex Pistols member is involved in the Joker's look.
Costume designers based Ledger's attire on a mixture of fashion influences ranging from the Sex Pistols' Johnny Rotten to Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen and Iggy Pop.
16. Ledger lived the Joker's life before he portrayed it on film.
He kept a journal and In it he wrote down the darkest and most perverse things he could think of just to get inside the mind of someone like the Joker.
17. Nobody on the set knows the Joker's backstory, not even the director.
One theory is that he's a soldier suffering from PTSD. That explains his knowledge of military-grade explosives.
18. In the Italian release, the actor that dubbed over the voice of the Joker is the son of the actor who dubbed Jack Nicholson's Joker in Batman (1989).
This is the father and son duo, Giancarlo Giannini and Adriano Giannini.
19. Bruce Wayne's car in the movie, a Lamborghini Murcielago, really fits the whole theme.
Murcielago is the Spanish word for bat.
20. The explosion in the hospital scene triggered panicked calls from nearby residents thinking it was a terrorist attack.
The hospital is an abandoned candy factory in Chicago.
21. The production team used "Rory's First Kiss" as a dummy title to evade media attention while filming.
Rory is the name of Nolan's son, by the way.
22. Some of the scenes were filmed using giant IMAX cameras.
The IMAX cameras were so loud that the actors had to dub their dialogues after filming.
23. The production team accidentally destroyed one of the only four IMAX cameras in existence.
That happened during the 18-wheeler chase scene (#11 on this list).