‘The Dark Knight’ — Christopher Nolan Had To Hide Bruce Wayne’s Funeral From the Film Crew To Keep It From Leaking To the Public

Christopher Nolan is one of the most talented and successful filmmakers in the movie business. His critically acclaimed Dark Knight trilogy is frequently regarded as one of the best superhero franchises to have been created, but the accolades didn’t come without a lot of hard work.

Nolan is known for his strong attention to detail, as well as his extreme secrecy while filming. In fact, while filming The Dark Knight Rises, he hid the details of Bruce Wayne’s funeral from everyone on set to ensure the storyline wouldn’t get leaked to the public. 

Christopher Nolan likes to keep all parts of his movies a secret until they’re released 

Nolan’s secrecy has been discussed at length by many industry professionals. His habits were analyzed in a behind the scenes documentary of the Dark Knight trilogy on the Warner Brothers Youtube channel. 

“Christopher Nolan has always loved secrecy,” Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly said. “He wants to preserve that cinema experience for us. He wants us to go into the theater without a lot of preconceptions, without a lot of spoilers in our head, and just sort of encounter the film as it is.” 

Nolan himself also explained why keeping essential elements of the story secret is so important when filmmaking. 

“The problem with the filmmaking process is it has to be done behind closed doors and it has to be done privately because you have to put on a magic show in a sense,” Nolan said. “You have to rehearse and figure it out, do it in front of the mirror, all of that. And then present it to people. And if you’re letting them see how you’re doing things, the relationship between the audience and the performers gets distorted. 

He had to hide Bruce Wayne’s funeral from the crew so it wouldn’t get leaked 

Nolan listed an experience with The Dark Knight Rises as his most memorable moment keeping story elements under wraps. 

“We’ve done various things over the years to keep things secret, under wraps,” Nolan said. “Probably the most extreme was with the funeral scene for Bruce Wayne.”

Because he knew there was a chance that the crew would leak the plotline to the public, he came up with a clever trick to keep it a secret.   

“I knew that we couldn’t really have the art department make out the correct name on the gravestone, because that would have been just too hard to keep under wraps. So we just went with a different name and used visual effects to change it.”

He made Christian Bale attend his own funeral on set 

Nolan also made Christian Bale come to set that day, to confuse anyone who may have had a hunch that it was Bruce Wayne’s funeral.  

“We went as far as having Christian on set that day so that he would appear on the call sheet, in case the call sheet leaked, in case there were long lens shots of the funeral,” Nolan said. “He would be there as a character as well.”

Even though Nolan’s methods confused some of the crew, he maintains that it had to be done. 

“It was a little confusing for Michael Caine when he first arrived on set,” Nolan said. “Christian standing there next to him, at his own funeral. With certain elements of the film, it’s very important to keep them secret.”