The Dark Knight Rises Production Heads to London and Alon Aboutboul Joins the Cast
After director Christopher Nolan wrapped his two-day shoot in Jodhpur, India, it was unclear where he would be taking The Dark Knight Rises (TDKR) production next. New York City and Pittsburgh are both locations where the movie is expected to shoot, but before it heads to the States TDKR has set up shop in jolly ol' England. According to HollywoodChicago, the TDKR crew has set up on St. John Street in London to shoot a scene or scenes at the Farmiloe Building (the building with the white facade in the image above), which doubled as the Gotham City Police Station in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. According to the site, local businesses "have been advised that they’ll be hearing gunshots for the shoot."
Nolan's third and final Batman movie not only received a new location, but a new cast member in Israeli actor Alon Aboutboul (TV's Fringe and Castle). According to XNet (via ScreenRant), Aboutboul's character will "embody the image of a particularly evil mad scientist." The description of Aboutboul's character has caused the fan community to once again revive the rumors that the villain Hugo Strange will be the mastermind behind Batman's (Christian Bale) problems in TDKR. Others speculate that Aboutboul's character is instead linked to Ra's al Ghul (Josh Pence) and the League of Shadows considering what we recently discovered about the Indian shoot. Another hypothesis is that Aboutboul's character is the scientist who created Bane's (Tom Hardy) Venom, the drug that gives him his super powers. Any one of these three theories is plausible at this time, but it could just as easily be a combination of several or all of these theories or Aboutboul could be playing a completely original character. Only time will tell.
The script for TDKR was written by Nolan's brother, Jonathan, from an idea conceived by Nolan and David S. Goyer. Joining Bale in reprising their roles from The Dark Knight are Morgan Freeman, Sir Michael Caine, Nestor Carbonell and Gary Oldman. New additions to the cast include Anne Hathaway, Juno Temple, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Daniel Sunjata, Diego Klattenhoff, and Burn Gorman.