(UPDATE: Sorry, no more pictures, we’ve been lawyer-f*cked. But you can still click-through and imagine what was there).

Following their semi-disastrous Hobbit presentation yesterday, Warner Bros released these new promo stills (via the SuperHeroHype forums) from The Dark Knight Rises, which opens July 20th (and which I have in our Fantasy Summer Box Office Game – HA!). In case Bane didn’t already look enough like a mumbly date rapist, now you can see that his pits are shaved. Also, I realize they probably wanted to fill the frame, but no one fights like that, at least no one outside of a stage production of Peter Pan. It looks like they’re playing crotch tag.

(couple more pictures on the following pages)

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[REMOVED, at da request o' dem lawyers.]

ComingSoon uncovered some new promo art for The Dark Knight Rises, and from the looks of it, the Dark Knight won’t be the ONLY thing rising, ifyouknowwhatImean! That’s right, I’m talking about your boner! But seriously, if your female cat is presenting like this, you better hope the male cats in the neighborhood are neutered or else they’ll be fighting and spraying everywhere. I wonder if those giant heels help you run and fight better. I bet they do.

TDKR was also the cover story of the most recent Entertainment Weekly, in which Tom Hardy claims you’ll be able to understand him:

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One of the things about January-February is that it’s the time of year when studios dump all their movies no one gives a crap about, thus we have plenty of time to speculate wildly about summer movies even though they won’t be out for six months. Case in point, yesterday, I reported a Collider story based on a tip from an insider, saying Bane’s unintelligible dialog in the Dark Knight Rises prologue (note: not the trailer, in which he’s pretty easy to understand), had been remixed, lowering the background noise and making it easier to understand.  Which seemingly would’ve been in line with what director Chris Nolan had said about it, that the plan was to alter the sound slightly, but not rework it altogether.

But now Collider has recanted their original story after speaking with IMAX and Warner Bros, who both confirmed that the sound mix has not been altered in anyway. (One of my Twitter followers saw the prologue last night, and reports that Bane is still all but impossible to understand). Meaning, I guess, that someone emailed Collider a fake story to screw with them. Because people do that? Dude, I don’t even… .

Now, let’s never speak of this again.

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"Come at me, bro."

UPDATE: After denials from Warner and IMAX, Collider has since taken down the story. It appears not to have been true.

Sound editors everywhere are probably thrilled to be part of the national conversation now that Bane’s unintelligible dialog in the Dark Knight Rises prologue has become the hottest story of winter. Last we heard, Chris Nolan’s plan was to “alter the sound slightly, not rework it completely.” But now, a source tells Collider that a new, re-mixed version of the prologue went out to IMAX theaters a few days ago. Ooh, I don’t know about this remix, I hope it’s not just the original with P Diddy saying “Ugh” and “Yeah” every few seconds.

“A friend of mine who is an IMAX projectionist told me they received a new soundtrack for the Dark Knight Rises prologue. He said it’s now a combo soundtrack with Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, but the cool thing about this is that they’ve cleaned up the dialogue. They’ve gone in and lowered the background noise of the plane and other things, thus making Bane’s dialogue clearer and more understandable.

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As with all things Dark Knight Rises-related, we thoroughly dissected the fan reaction to the six-minute IMAX prologue that played before Mission Impossible, specifically the part about no one being able to understand Bane’s dialog. You can bet Warner execs have been hearing that same criticism, and studio people are skittish like coked-up chihuahuas when it comes to this kind of stuff. God help us all if they start trying to “fix” it.

Sources close to the movie say Warner Bros. is very aware of the sound issue. One source working on the film says he is “scared to death” about “the Bane problem.” And with good reason. The last Batman film, 2008’s The Dark Knight, grossed more than $1 billion worldwide, and the studio doesn’t want anything to tamper with Rise’s chances for success.
Sources also say some at Warners would like Nolan to change the sound mix, but the filmmaker, whose autonomy is well-earned (his Inception earned the studio more than $800 million and eight Oscar nominations), has informed executives that he plans only to alter the sound slightly, not to rework it completely.
“Chris wants the audience to catch up and participate rather than push everything at them. He doesn’t dumb things down,” says one high-level exec, declining to be named. “You’ve got to pedal faster to keep up.” [THR]

What exactly would “rework it completely” even entail? Re-recording it and dubbing it back in like a kung fu flick? Boost the mid-range, drop out some background noise, and call it a day. Some of the stuff was hard to understand, but so be it. That just means fanboys will have to see it four or five times instead of two or three and end up liking it more. Trying to understand what he’s saying is half the fun. Why do you think I’ve listened to “Informer” so many times? I just assume Bane is going to make me boom boom down. And I like that.