Christian Bale Brawling on the Dark Knight Rises Set

Director Christopher Nolan brings his crew and stars to Pittsburgh for an all-out brawl in Gotham

By Gregory Imler Aug 01, 2011 6:40 PMTags
Christian Bale, Tom HardyJared Wickerham/Getty Images

After months of secrecy and veiled bits of information, we're finally getting an action-filled peek at director Christopher Nolan's final installment in his Batman franchise, The Dark Knight Rises.

Another case of Bale losing his cool during a film shoot?

Not hardly.

Let's just cut to the chase: Batman (Christian Bale) and the newest Gotham villain Bane (Tom Hardy) are duking it out on the steps of City Hall. In broad daylight. Gotham's crime problem really has gotten out of hand. At least the Caped Crusader looks like he's landed a serious elbow shot.

Nolan, his stars and his massive crew descended upon the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute Building in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh and whipped up a fake snowstorm to beat the area's 90-degree weather and set the scene for an all-out brawl between police and a massive gang.

But a swarm of hoodlums wasn't the only thing the director trucked to the scene. Several camouflaged Tumblers (aka, Batmobiles) were spotted cruising the streets of Steel City.

Heck, there was even a carjacking thwarted not by Bats but by local cops—but that's another story...