It wasn’t on any schedules, but rumor had it that Warner Bros. would make an appearance at the IGN Theater at the New York Comic Con this weekend. Just after the panel for The Incredible Hulk earlier today (I’ll get to that in a separate entry), it was announced that there’d be a short presentation from Warner Bros. Paulie Litt, the young actor who plays Sprite in Speed Racer, came out and introduced some footage from his upcoming film.

Then a representative for Warner Bros. (I didn’t catch the name) opened by saying, “New York Comic Con has always been a special home to one of our characters” and explained that years ago, they had tried to figure out how to have a Bat Signal flashing outside from the hotels. That’s when everyone (including me) went bat shit, realizing that we were going to get something from Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins sequel The Dark Knight.

Turns out, it was a first-look at the new full-length trailer for the film! Here’s a few details from the trailer, which will premiere to the public in two weeks:

• It begins with Batman overlooking Gotham City, as the voice of Heath Ledger as The Joker says, “Where do we begin?”
• The Joker leads a meeting of mob bosses where he declares, “It’s simply. Kill the Batman.”
• The audience got a laugh when The Joker held up a Joker playing card and said, “Here’s my card.”
• There’s also more scenes of Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes. She tells Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), “Bruce, don’t make me your only hope for a normal life.”
• The Joker says about Gotham, “This city deserves a better class of criminal.”
• We finally see footage of Aaron Eckhart as District Attorney Harvey Dent, who says, “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” There were no scenes with Two-Face, the supervillain Dent eventually becomes, in this trailer.

The Dark Knight hits theaters July 18, 2008