The Dark Knight Rises Case Study

The Dark Knight Rises is the third,final and highest grossing movie in the trilogy. In the box office, it was extremely successful grossing a enormous $1,084,439,099. Set 8 years after the events of The Dark Knight, Gotham is finally at a time of peace. This is due to Batman taking the fall for Harvey Dent’s murder. However, a new evil villain; Bane has arrived in Gotham and aims to take over the city and expose the truth behind who Harvey Dent really was. Wayne Manor having been completely rebuilt, Bruce Wayne has become almost reclusive, rarely leaving the estate. And with Bane taking over the city by force, it forces Batman to come out of retirement. But his allies are few and far apart. An elusive jewel thief by the name of Selina Kyle could be the key to stopping Bane.

With Christopher Nolan directing the audience will know to expect a darker and more gritty vision of what they know as the Batman universe. Focusing primarily on ‘Pain’ for this movie displaying clearly the physical pain inflicted on Batman as well as his mental struggle and the ever decaying society of Gotham. This could be figurative representation of the experience than many endure at different levels but Bruce’s being more physical than anything else.  Christopher also drew his inspiration from Bane’s comic book debut “Knightfall” and several other comics allowing him to emphasise what he deemed important from those storylines. This will allow the audience to link from what they known from the storylines to Nolan’s creation. This will differentiate between different members of the audience resulting in different interpretations of the meanings. Another consistant theme used for this film is ‘Fire’. Through out the different pieces of media surrounding this is used, in the movie the main villain Bane is quoted saying “The Fire Rises” this scene is also coincidentally used as part of the trailer showing it has some significance. The poster also makes use of this quote and features flames in the shape of a Batman’s logo that are edging closer to engulfing Batman. From this the audience can work out that the fire is going to be the cause of the pain mentioned earlier. In addition to all of this the marketing campaign based around their website where an encrypted audio file described by users as chanting when decrypted was revealed to be the twitter hashtag “#TheFireRises” once again following the theme but when users tweeted using the hashtag Warner Bros. removed a pixel from the webpage. This eventually revealing the first official picture of Bane, now from this when bearing in mind the trailer with the quote being said by Bane and this with the hashtag could allow the audience to work out that Bane is the creator of the Fire that causes Bruce pain. This is then reinforced upon the release of the movie.

The Dark Knight movies have a unbelievably large international fan base that consists of both the comic book fans and many other types of people among those who are fans of the institution. The movie itself can now be viewed from a large amount of services such as Netflix and Lovefilm but in terms of the 3 different platforms in media there were a large plethora of ways in which the audience could access the media. In terms of print the movie had a large range of poster that all teased or represented different things these were also put on display on buses and billboards around the globe where applicable. For broadcast, there were multiple trailers that were displayed where they unmissable during primetime TV and all over the web making extremely easy for the audience to access this media. In addition in terms of broadcast there were a large number of interviews with actors, directors and producers that were shown on major broadcasting sites like Youtube. E-media is where this movie really shines when it comes to accessibility along with all the social network connectivity with the website the movie also had a App Store game release alongside the movie this allowed the audience to access this media even more providing them a virtual version of Gotham in the palm of their hand allowing them to take on the role of Batman and considering their target audience being a primarily male youthful audience a large majority of them are likely to have access to an smartphone making this e-media extremely effective.

Production Issues

Reception Issues
The movie was shown in a large amount of cinemas and for good reasons, it is what is believed to be the ‘correct’ way to see the movie. With the large speakers and explosive scenes adding much more depth and meaning to them. It is also is consumed by the audience with friends as going to the cinema is a social experience and is meant to be enjoyed with friends and the multiple meanings from what is said and done by characters. This then taking away from the individual experience making less appealing to re watch.