"The Dark Knight Rises"

"The Dark Knight Rises" is the conclusion to Christopher Nolan's trilogy of Batman films, and takes place eight years after the events of 2008's "The Dark Knight." As seen in Nolan's previous films, the world of Gotham City confronts terrorism and political anarchy in an epic that is anything but comic book in its emotional depth.

By CBSNews.com senior editor David Morgan

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman in "The Dark Knight Rises."

The trilogy explores the theme of myth-making - what defines a hero in the popular imagination, despite (or perhaps because of) society's strictures against violence and law-breaking, as a vigilante becomes a savior for a city beset by chaos and corruption.

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

After Warner Brothers revived the Batman franchise with Tim Burton's 1989 "Batman," a stream of superhero films featuring Michael Keaton, George Clooney and Val Kilmer grew progressively cartoonish. With the 2005 "Batman Begins," Christopher Nolan revisited the origins of Bruce Wayne and his creation of the winged vigilante as part of a darker, more realistic world.

Nolan followed with "The Dark Knight" (2008), featuring Heath Ledger's bravura performance as The Joker, an anarchist who tries to bring Gotham City to its knees. Ledger won a posthumous Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

Director Christopher Nolan on the set of "The Dark Knight Rises."

When asked about the pressure he may have felt in following up his Batman films, in particular his critically lauded "The Dark Knight," Nolan replied, "At the early stage felt a lot of pressure - why would we do this? Do we have the story to tell? Once we knew that we had a story that WE really wanted to see, that we wanted to know what happened to Bruce Wayne and where his story was going to go, then everything else starts falling into place.

"Then you have to kind of forget that pressure and just try to make the best film you can."

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

Bane (Tom Hardy) and his mercenaries invade Gotham City's stock exchange in "The Dark Knight Rises."

Christian Bale remarked on Christopher Nolan's ability to make his films topical, even when dealing with archetypal, mythic characters:

"Occupy Wall Street was actually happening a couple of blocks away from where we were filming in New York, which he had no way of knowing it was going to happen when he wrote the script and when we started.

"Bob Kane created this character in 1939 - which being from England that's the beginning of World War II - and it was an answer to the uselessness that individuals felt against this humongous tragedy, and what could you do? So [Batman] was topical in its inception. And I think Chris has returned it to that."

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

Tom Hardy as the villain Bane in "The Dark Knight Rises."

"Everything he does is a means to an end," Hardy said. "Bane has come to do a job and has no feelings of remorse or shame about the death and destruction he's causing. There is nothing ambiguous about Bane.

"He is clearly a villain," he said. "Just a horrible piece of work."

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

A "Tumbler" is blown up on Wall Street during filming of "The Dark Knight Rises" in New York.

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

Christian Bale as Batman in a scene from "The Dark Knight Rises."

A Best Supporting Actor Oscar-winner for "The Fighter," Bale made his first major feature film appearance at age 13 in the 1987 Steven Spielberg epic "Empire of the Sun." Since then he quickly progressed from child actor ("Treasure Island," "Newsies") to more mature roles in "Little Women," "The Portrait of a Lady," "Velvet Goldmine," "American Psycho," "Shaft," "Rescue Dawn," "The New World," "The Prestige," "3:10 to Yuma," "I'm Not There," "Terminator Salvation," "Public Enemies," and "The Flowers of War."

"It's been a very important character [to me]," said Bale of the caped crusader he's portrayed in three films. "The movies themselves have changed my life and changed my career."

Bale is currently in production on Terrence Malick's "Knight of Cups."

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

Christian Bale as billionaire Bruce Wayne - a scion of the "1%" - and Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle - a cat burglar with her own antipathy for the super-rich - in "The Dark Knight Rises."

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

Anne Hathaway as Catwoman in "The Dark Knight Rises."

A Best Actress Oscar nominee for "Rachel Getting Married," Hathaway has also appeared in "The Princess Diaries" movies, "The Other Side of Heaven," "Nicholas Nickleby," "Ella Enchanted," "Brokeback Mountain," "The Devil Wears Prada," "Becoming Jane," "Get Smart," "Rachel Getting Married," "Valentine's Day," "Alice in Wonderland," "Love and Other Drugs," "One Day" and "Les Miserables."

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

Gary Oldman (an Oscar nominee for last year's "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy") returns as Police Commissioner Gordon in "The Dark Knight Rises."

Oldman said, "He's probably been doing a lot of paper pushing (in the eight years since the events of "Dark Knight"), "and that has dampened his spirits. Now you really feel like the old Gordon is back."

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

Tom Hardy as Bane and Christian Bale as Batman in "The Dark Knight Rises."

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

Tom Hardy as Bane in "The Dark Knight Rises."

Hardy's other notable roles include Nolan's "Inception"; "Black Hawk Down," "Layer Cake," "RocknRolla," Nicolas Winding Refn's "Bronson," "This Means War," "Warrior," "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," "Lawless," and TV's "Band of Brothers" and "Wuthering Heights." Hardy is currently in production in Australia, as a character made famous by Mel Gibson, in "Mad Max: Road Fury."

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

Production designer Nathan Crowley created the sets constructed in England for "The Dark Knight Rises," including the underworld of Gotham City.

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

A view from a helicopter, filming "Dark Knight Rises" stunt work in the skies over Inverness, Scotland, as four stuntmen cling to the fuselage of a plane.

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

Marion Cotillard, who starred in Christopher Nolan's last feature, "Inception," is featured as philanthropist Miranda Tate in "The Dark Knight Rises."

Cotillard won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of singer Edith Piaf in "La Vie en Rose." Her other films include "A Very Long Engagement," "Taxi," "A Good Year," "Public Enemies," "Nine," "Contagion," "Midnight in Paris," "Little White Lies," "Rust & Bone" and "Blood Ties."

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (another alumnus of "Inception") joined the cast of "The Dark Knight Rises" as Gotham City Police Officer John Blake.

Gordon-Levitt's acting began at age 7, with a variety of TV credits (such as "Murder She Wrote" and "Dark Shadows") and films ("A River Runs Through It"). He starred in the TV series "3rd Rock from the Sun." Other recent and upcoming films include "(500) Days of Summer," "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra," "50/50," "Premium Rush," "Looper" and "Lincoln."

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

Director Christopher Nolan with Morgan Freeman and Christan Bale on the set of "The Dark Knight Rises."

Freeman said he did not play hard to get to return for the sequel: "Absolutely not. Reading the the script was like, wow! How do people come up with my name for stuff like this? It's wonderful!"

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

"I would have played a footstool in this movie," said Anne Hathaway, the latest actress to portray Catwoman (though she is not referred to by that name). Her character of Selina Kyle - a cat burglar - is not a dichotomy of two contrasting personas the way Bruce Wayne/Batman is.

"I loved that the focus was who she was as Selina, and that there wasn't a schism within her, that she didn't change when she put on that suit. It was kind of her uniform that she had to wear for her job."

When asked how she handled her action scenes in high heels, she laughed that running around the streets of Manhattan for "The Devil Wears Prada" was "really good training for that!"

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

Batman (Christian Bale) takes aim in "The Dark Knight Rises."

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Michael Caine as Alfred in "The Dark Knight Rises."

Caine says of his character, "In terms of the audience, Alfred represents us in this incredible world. He is our spokesman. He's not tough like the others; he reacts like an ordinary human being in this situation."

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

"The Dark Knight Rises" brings Pittsburgh summer snow

Scenes set in Gotham City were filmed in Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and the New York City area.

Left: The production team brought artificial snow to the streets of Pittsburgh while filming in the middle of summer 2011.

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

The full-size version of the flying vehicle, dubbed The Bat, was 30 feet long and 17 feet wide, with a two-person cockpit and dual-anchored machine guns.

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

The Bat in "The Dark Knight Rises."

Nolan said of Imax, "It's the best possible quality image when you film with their cameras, and you project that film in the theatres with those huge screens. There's really no other way to do that with any other imaging technology.

"What I love about [Imax] as opposed to 3D is, it creates a much larger-than-life image. When you watch a 3D film, the parallax makes it more intimate, it shrinks the imagery that you're looking at. I actually, really for these characters in these movies, I like to see Batman larger-than-life, [and] the clarity draws me in."

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

Tom Hardy as Bane in "The Dark Knight Rises."

In her wardrobe for Bane, costume designer Lindy Hemming told GQ magazine that her concept was a cross between a dictator and a revolutionary, and so her design of his coat combined elements of a Swedish army jacket and a French Revolution frock coat.

And his mask? Bane breathes a life-sustaining gas, and while it recalls Dennis Hopper's creepy villain in David Lynch's "Blue Velvet," Hemming said its intent was to bring an animalistic, "snarling" element to the character.

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

Tom Hardy as Bane and Christian Bale as Batman in a confrontation from "The Dark Knight Rises."

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Darryl Dyck

Three-year-old Alex Agostini shows his excitement after getting to see the Batmobile from the Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises," at Electronic Arts in Burnaby, B.C., on Tuesday April 17, 2012.

Special effects man (and cancer survivor) Andrew Smith, who worked on the first two Batman films and created the Batmobile, brought it to Vancouver as a fundraiser for the B.C. Cancer Foundation. He told The Globe & Mail that the Batmobile, which had been transported uncovered from L.A., had some trouble getting past curious customs agents at the border. "It caused chaos," he said. "Everybody wanted a look."

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

A vehicle from "The Dark Knight Rises" makes an appearance before the qualifying practice of the MotoGp Of Holland, at TT Circuit Assen on June 29, 2012 in Assen, Netherlands.

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

Director Christopher Nolan and his wife, producer Emma Thomas, arrive at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace during CinemaCon, the official convention of the National Association of Theatre Owners, to promote "The Dark Knight Rises," April 24, 2012 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Nolan studied English literature and filmmaking in London before shooting his first feature, "Following" (1998). But it was his time-shifting mystery "Memento" (2000) that put him on the map, earning him an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay (shared with his brother Jonathan). His later credits include the Al Pacino-Robin Williams thriller "Insomnia"; "The Prestige," starring Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale; and the 2010 science fiction thriller "Inception," for which Nolan received Academy Award nominations for Best Screenplay and Best Picture.

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

Director, writer and producer Christopher Nolan, center, who was honored with a hand and footprint ceremony at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, poses with "The Dark Knight Rises" stars (Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Anne Hathaway and Christian Bale) on July 7, 2012, in Hollywood, Calif.

Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

Teaser poster for "The Dark Knight Rises."

The film premieres July 20, 2012.

For more info:

"The Dark Knight Rises": New trailer spotlights Batman and Bane
Pictures: "The Dark Knight Rises" premieres in NYC

By CBSNews.com senior editor David Morgan