‘The Dark Knight’ IMAX Prologue Leaks Online; Inspiration Drawn From ‘Heat’

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CHICAGO – A bootlegged recording of “The Dark Knight” IMAX prologue, which is showing in theaters before “I Am Legend,” is now on YouTube. My review of the prologue is here.

Jeffrey Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere makes these comparisons:

It was clearly shot with impressions of the legendary bank-heist sequence from Michael Mann’s “Heat” in mind.

I love how William Fichtner’s reading of the line “do you have any idea who you’re stealing from?” (which refers to the fact that the bank has lots of mafia money in its vaults) is very similar to Warren Beatty’s yelling during the “bark like a dog” sequence in “Bugsy”.

JoBlo has also picked this up and noticed the inspiration from “Heat”. This is also on /Film and AICN.

4:59 p.m. update: Another WhySoSerious.com poster has emerged. These are from RopeofSilicon.com. They have also been picked up on Film School Rejects and /Film.

The second WhySoSerious.com poster above I already posted on Dec. 14, 2007. I’m posting it again because this version is better quality. A high-resolution version of the first poster is here.

5:42 p.m. update: In the few minutes this post has been live with the posters, I have received several e-mails all saying the following:

The first poster with the Joker’s palm pressed against the window is a fan-made [manipulation].

It was created by Barney at the Superhero Hype! forums. He also created the Batman poster holding a Joker card that was widely believed to be real.

Several other people on various forums have confirmed this, too.

By ADAM FENDELMAN Editor-in-Chief HollywoodChicago.com adam@hollywoodchicago.com