Bale on The Dark Knight Progress

From SHH, Later this week, Superhero Hype! will be visiting the Chicago set of Warner Bros.' Batman sequel The Dark Knight, but we got an early chance to talk to Christian Bale, Batman himself, about the progress of the movie when he spent a day in New York doing press for Werner Herzog's POW drama Rescue Dawn. We were especially interested in knowing how things were going this time, considering that they didn't have the baggage that went along with the making of Batman Begins, Bale being new to the character after the disastrous Batman & Robin, and there's far more good karma surrounding the sequel.

"It's been a lot easier because of that," he told us. "People aren't questioning, 'Are they going to do it or not?' There's been an acceptance of, 'Yes, these guys know what they're doing' and also, because we got so familiar with each other... it's now the third movie that I made with Chris (Nolan) and Michael Caine. I've gotten to know everybody. We all know how we all work. It's like my 5th movie with the D.P. It just flies along because there's no question in trying to sort of work each other out at all. We all know how we like to do it, and there's a nice shorthand between us all in terms of communication."

He also said that they do feel some pressure to try to do outdo or better the first movie, but that's necessary.

"Yes, you must, you have to do that. If we're just doing the same, then what's the point? There are people who should demand that, but it does get better, so we have to do that. That would be the death knell, wouldn't it? If we all got complacent, just said, 'Oh, we just have to bang out the same thing we did before.' Sure, we use the strengths, and we're not going to discard the things that worked, but we've got to move forward as well."