Christopher Nolan‘s Batman trilogy draws to a close next month with the much-anticipated release of The Dark Knight Rises. One of the most crucial and defining elements of the series has been the musical scores composed by Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard. For the score to The Dark Knight Rises Zimmer will be flying solo for the first time, but if you remember his stellar score to Nolan’s 2010 mind-bending blockbuster Inception, you just might be perfectly fine with that.

I’m anxious to hear what Zimmer has in store for Nolan’s final journey to Gotham City. With the movie guaranteed to be a sweeping action epic with great intellectual and emotional themes running through its narrative, the noted composer will have a lot of musical ground to cover. Jett at Batman-On-Film has revealed the track listing for the upcoming release of the soundtrack, which is available for pre-order now, and posted the album cover art as well.

You can check them both out here below.

The new footage for The Dark Knight Rises that debuted on Sunday during the live broadcast of the 2012 MTV Movie Awards was undoubtedly the highlight of the show. You can watch that footage here below, along with a new 30-second TV spot for the film.

At the MTV Movie Awards, The Dark Knight Rises stars Christian Bale, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Gary Oldman took the stage to introduce a montage of memorable scenes from the previous Batman films, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight (see video below of the presentation). Bale was noticeably choked up after seeing his Dark Knight co-star, the late Heath Ledger, on screen and made reference to Ledger before bringing out director Christopher Nolan, who then presented the new footage.

For quite some time now it’s been stated pretty matter-of-factly that trilogy-maker The Dark Knight Rises would be the final Batman movie made by director Christopher Nolan and likely the rest of his cast and crew, including star Christian Bale.

This was so sure that it had already been announced that Warner Brothers planned to reboot the franchise after Nolan and company’s departure…and it remains all but guaranteed (the departure; not the reboot) to this very day. But what fun would it be if it were ever that simple? A new quote from Bale himself has opened up just a sliver of “what if?” conversation, and you can see the quote below.

Recorded May 25, 2012. Hosted by Justin Vactor, Hunter Camp, and Chris McDavid.

Chris McDavid returns, but Willie has gone missing! Solve the mystery of the missing Gillis, while the rest of the guys discuss several topics such as Flex Mentallo, the legacy of Watchmen, Batman Incorporated and Atomic Robo. Also featured on this episode is an update from Hunter on the status of Batman: The Dark Knight and McDavid’s recommendations on current comics.

Listen to this episode! The fate of the world depends on it!!!

Warner Brothers is revving up the marketing machine for The Dark Knight Rises. In the past few days, the studio has released a theatrical poster and six character posters, the latter of which was the best. Now we have four new character banners that should amplify audiences’ interest ten fold. You can check out these new character banners below. Credit goes to Collider for unveiling these four incredible banners.

Like the previous posters, the banners are setting the tone for the film. All the debris and mayhem that is occurring in the banners doesn’t bode well for the caped crusader. But I love the final poster where Batman and the Gotham City Police are about to clash with Bane and his army. Then there are the battle line posters, where Batman stands on top a Gotham City police car with officers behind him, and Bane standing on top of a Tumbler with his army behind him.