Batman Begins Turns 20: 11 Behind-The-Scenes Facts You Probably Never Knew

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15 hours ago

It's been 20 years since we were introduced to Christopher Nolan's dark and gritty Batman trilogy.
Leading star Christian Bale brought a whole new approach to the iconic superhero in 2005's Batman Begins, which went on to be a huge critical and commercial success, kicking off an Oscar-winning franchise that would make its way into plenty of cinephiles' top 10 lists.
Also starring Cillian Murphy, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes and Gary Oldman, Batman Begins brought a rough edge to the Dark Knight's origin story as he vowed to clean up crime in Gotham City.
As fans will no doubt be returning to the movie to mark the anniversary, here are 11 behind-the-scenes secrets you might not have known about how the film was made…
It's hard to imagine anyone else capturing the fierce intensity of Bruce Wayne in Christopher Nolan's trilogy quite like Christian Bale, but there were a few other big names up for the role.
Those included Jake Gyllenhaal (sister of Maggie, who would later take over the role of Rachel Dawes from Katie Holmes), Eion Bailey, Heath Ledger (who, of course, went on to play The Joker in The Dark Knight) and Cillian Murphy, who eventually landed the role of Scarecrow instead.
Before the role went to Cillian, director Christopher Nolan was drawn to another big name who he would go on to work with in Oppenheimer: Robert Downey Jr.
'I 100% knew you weren't the guy. In my head, that was already cast,' the director admitted to the Iron Man actor in a joint interview with The New York Times in 2024.
However, despite being a 'huge admirer' of the Marvel star's work, Nolan also confessed to being 'a little afraid' of him, claiming: 'I had heard all kinds of stories about how you were crazy. It was only a few years after the last of those stories that had come out about you.'
From 1996 to the early 2000s, Robert had been arrested several times for drug-related issues, and went on to spend 15 months in prison before turning his life around.
Christian has long been known for his drastic physical transformations in preparation for movie roles, most famously losing around 28kg in preparation for his role in The Machinist.
But within just five months of wrapping on that film, he had to bulk up again for Batman Begins, eventually reaching 220 pounds (around 99kg).
'I had to put on a great deal of weight, which was necessary for the character,' he told the BBC.
'[Batman] has no superpowers so you have to believe he's capable of this. I kind of knew I could do it. I think Chris was probably worrying far more than me. I was talking to him one time on the telephone whilst we were doing The Machinist and he'd say, 'How're you looking these days?'
He continued: 'It was, frankly, pathetic, I was down to 121 pounds and I couldn't do a single push up – this is maybe not the guy you want to cast as Batman. But we had enough time. It was an arduous journey to get there, but I managed to get into appropriate shape by the time we started filming.'
When you look at the rock solid exterior of the Batman suit, can you really blame Christian Bale for having a little trouble with acting in it?
'It's true that it's hot and sweaty wearing it, it gives you a headache, but I'm not going to complain about it because I got to play Batman!' he shared in a BBC interview.
Still, he told Vulture when the trilogy concluded that he would miss wearing the suit, despite all its problems.
'For all the discomfort and the heat and the sweat and the headaches and everything from it, when you sit back and watch the movie at the end of the day, you go: 'Well, that's fuckin' cool',' he conceded. 'I will miss that, I liked the good bit of rubber.'
While it's true that Christian Bale performed many of his own stunts in the movie, including those intense fight sequences, he drew the line at getting behind the wheel of the formidable Batmobile.
Instead, a stunt driver George Cottle took charge in those scenes, and apparently went through four Batmobiles during the filming of Batman Begins, according to The Guardian.
Meanwhile, the Batpod (the epic motorcycle-like escape vehicle that emerges from the Batmobile itself) was also secretly being designed during Batman Begins to be used in sequel The Dark Knight.
Most movie productions will utilise a second unit, which shoots sequences simultaneously that don't necessarily require the main actors, like establishing shots, cutaways or action sequences.
But Christopher Nolan decided against that, and instead was reportedly present for the whole 129 days of shooting.
'He said to the studio, 'Why would I want to direct an action film where I hire another director to direct the action?'' director of photography Wally Pfister recalled in an interview with Empire. 'It seemed insane, but it made all the sense in the world to me!'
While the fictional Gotham City is set in the US, some pretty important scenes were also shot in England and Iceland.
An especially lavish location in the UK served as the setting for Wayne Manor: a 19th century country house in Buckinghamshire called Mentmore Towers.
However as of last year, it was identified as being an at risk property by Historic England after falling into disrepair.
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You might remember the scene where Christian Bale and Liam Neeson have a sword fight on a frozen lake. Well, there were a few hairy moments during that shoot in Iceland.
'I was teaching him how to fight with these little swords, and we were literally fighting at the base of this huge glacier that had a pond of ice at the front, and we had ice wranglers,' explained Liam on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
'Christian and I would be on doing our dialogue and fighting and stuff, and suddenly the ice wranglers would shout 'Stop, everybody off the ice', and we'd all come off very quick, and this glacier would move maybe two inches. And the noise that came up through the earth, and seeing this ice buckle and then settle again, was very, very frightening.'
It shouldn't come as much surprise to hear that Ridley Scott's 1982 classic Blade Runner was a huge point of reference for Christopher Nolan.
In an interview with Forbes looking back on Batman Begins, the director shared: 'From a pragmatic point of view, Blade Runner is actually one of the most successful films of all time in terms of constructing that reality using sets.
'On Batman Begins, unlike The Dark Knight, we found ourselves having to build the streets of Gotham in large part. So, I immediately gravitated toward the visual treatment that Ridley Scott had come up with, in terms of how you shoot these massive sets to make them feel real and not like impressive sets.
'And immediately we started looking at the rain, the handheld cameras, the longer lenses.'
Ahead of the film's release, production company Warner Bros. had been referring to the film with the working title Intimidation Game to keep excited fans off the scent, but they apparently never intended to use it.
In a 2005 interview with The Independent, Michael Caine, who plays butler Alfred in the franchise, shared: '[Christopher Nolan] gave me half an hour to read it, because he wouldn't let the script out of his sight.
'It was called The Intimidation Game then, and he was very secretive about it. I mean, he wouldn't leave the house until I'd finished reading, and then he took the script away.'
On first glance, those fancy names on James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmers' soundtrack may look like Latin phrases, but there's actually one key detail tying them all together.
Each track on the intense classical score is actually named after a different type of bat, ranging from Barbastella, Artibeus, Tadarida. The more you know…
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