Trailer
Plot summary
As a boy, Bruce Wayne falls into a well on the grounds of Wayne Manor and is frightened by the bats that swarm out of it. A mugger shoots his parents during a night at the opera, and the family butler, Alfred Pennyworth, raises him. As an adult, Bruce comes home for the parole hearing of Joe Chill, the man who killed them, and his friend Rachel Dawes, now an assistant district attorney, tells him that Gotham is in the grip of the crime boss Carmine Falcone. Bruce confronts Falcone, then leaves the city and drifts through the criminal underworld abroad. In a prison, Henri Ducard offers him a place in the League of Shadows. Bruce trains there, refuses the League's demand that he execute a prisoner, and goes home.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Batman Begins (2005)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Christian Bale gained 100 lb of muscle in only a couple of months for the role, then realized he had gone 30 lb over and lost the excess before filming began.
- Christian Bale, Eion Bailey and Cillian Murphy auditioned for Batman using the sonar suit Val Kilmer wore in Batman Forever, but the cape was lost, and Amy Adams read lines as the casting reader.
- Darren Aronofsky wanted Joaquin Phoenix to play Batman in his planned adaptation, but the studio wanted Freddie Prinze Jr. instead.
- Nolan offered the role of Alfred Pennyworth to Anthony Hopkins, who declined, so Nolan drove to Michael Caine's country home to hand him the script and describe Alfred as "Batman's godfather".
- The cape was made from the team's own version of parachute nylon with electrostatic flocking, a process the British Ministry of Defence shared and the London police used to minimize night vision detection.
- The film helped popularize the term "reboot" in Hollywood and inspired studios to revive franchises with realistic, serious tones.
