The New York Times has posted an in-depth report from the set of The Dark Knight, in which it is revealed that the film was made on a budget of $180 million and was filmed without a second unit, meaning that every shot was photographed by director Chris Nolan himself.

The article also features interesting insights into the film’s sombre thematics, with Nolan quoted as saying: ‘As we looked through the comics, there was this fascinating idea that Batman’s presence in Gotham actually attracts criminals to Gotham, attracts lunacy. When you’re dealing with questionable notions like people taking the law into their own hands, you have to really ask, where does that lead? That’s what makes the character so dark, because he expresses a vengeful desire.’

A couple of new stills were published along with the article and can be accessed in our movie gallery.

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Empire confronted director Paul Greengrass and actor Matt Damon at the Empire Awards this weekend about the news that they’re set to return to the Jason Bourne franchise:

‘We’re all for doing a fourth movie but it means coming up with a good story. There are a lot of things that would have to happen before we would sign up for it,’ said Damon.

Greengrass added they’re ‘in the process of trying to work out what kind of film you could make. If there is one, what would it be? How it could go? Without any pressure; without any commitment to it, but everybody loved the franchise. We love it, but none of us would want to go again unless we’re sure there’s a worthwhile film and that could take some time. You don’t want to do that when you feel like you’ve got to make it and none of us need to, so that’s where we are.’

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Justin Long (Live Free or Die Hard) has been cast in Sam Raimi’s horror thriller Drag Me To Hell, according to Variety.

Long will play the boyfriend of Alison Lohman’s character, who is described as the unwitting recipient of a supernatural curse. Lohman was recently cast in the lead role as a replacement for Ellen Page, who had to leave the project due to a conflict of schedules.

The movie starts shooting at the end of the month in Los Angeles. Sam Reimi wrote the screenplay together with his brother Ivan.

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Mila Kunis (That 70s Show) has been cast in the female lead role opposite Mark Wahlberg in 20th Century Fox’s Max Payne, Variety reports.

An adaptation of the Rockstar videogame, Wahlberg plays Payne, a cop haunted by the tragic loss of his family who finds himself in the thick of a conspiracy when he investigates a series of murders.

Kunis will play an assassin who teams up with Payne to avenge her sister’s death. The John Moore-directed action project with Beau Thorne scripting is scheduled for release later this year.

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We know that Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent plays a prominent role in The Dark Knight, yet we’ve hardly seen anything of the character in the film’s trailers and many promotional images so far.

The reason for this, according to CHUD, may be the audacious filming technique used by director Chris Nolan: Basically, Nolan shot complementary takes of Eckhart in Two-Face makeup so he could visually represent the duality of Dent in a less cartoony fashion.  What Nolan’s doing doesn’t sound all that far removed from the Gollum/Smeagol model, though the obvious difference here is that Dent isn’t motion-capture; he’s a fifty-fifty split of the same actor giving two wildly divergent performances in the same shot. […] both will be present in the shot, but only one will dominate the poor bastard’s conflicted consciousness at any given moment.

The Batman Begins sequel opens in cinemas July 18.

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Paramount Pictures has acquired the film rights to adapt the Valiant Comics series Harbinger writes Variety.

The live action feature is being developed as a potential directing vehicle for Brett Ratner,  who also will take up the production reigns alongside Alexandra Milchan and Jay Stern.  The project may be branded under the MTV Films banner.

Created by Jim Shooter, the Harbinger comicbook series became a hit when published in the 1990s. Harbingers are humans with powers that can be unlocked by ‘omega’ harbingers. Teenager Pete Stanchek finds himself on a collision course with an older omega who used his gifts to become an evil industrialist.

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