FIRST IMAGE OF TOM HARDY AS BANE REVEALED

The Dark Knight had some of the best viral marketing in movie history, and now it looks as if that mysterious stuff is going to continue with the final Christopher Nolan Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises. Warner Bros. opened the official website at thedarkknightrises.com, and if you head there, you’ll see a pixellated image of a figure. The code was cracked earlier today by some fans, and here is the image in all its glory (click image for hi-res version):

It’s our first glimpse of Tom Hardy as Bane, and it seems as if Nolan is going for a real “maniacal caged animal” look  for the character. I’m sure we’re in store for a lot more of these enigmatic images and viral tomfoolery for the next year. The Dark Knight Rises opens in June, 2012.

TOM HARDY DISCUSSES BANE, POSSIBLE ‘INCEPTION’ SEQUEL

Australian badass Tom Hardy is white-hot in the acting world at the moment, coming off a major role in Christopher Nolan’s Inception and a critically acclaimed performance in the cult film Bronson. Hardy’s next role will be the villain Bane in Nolan’s Batman finale, The Dark Knight Rises. Hardy was a guest on some obnoxious British talk show called The Chatty Man, and if you can get past the rather, err…flamboyant host Alan Carr acting like a spastic, love-struck schoolboy for about a minute and a half, you can listen to Hardy talk about the character: