(image courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures)

Our Starwars.com ShoWest coverage of the Warner Bros. “Big Picture” presentation continues with the introduction to the next Batman film The Dark Knight. In the film Batman (Christian Bale) and Lt. James Gordon (Gary Oldman) join forces with Gotham’s new District Attorney, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), to take on a psychotic bank robber known as The Joker (Heath Ledger).

Writer/director Christopher Nolan spoke to the audience about his reasons for continuing the story arc of Batman and his most noted adversary, The Joker.

Christopher Nolan:
“I’ve often been asked to justify going form indie films to operating on a larger scale film. I have this desire to recreate that experience of ‘our hopes concentrating on the screen.’ We started an epic story with the first film [Batman Begins] and I’d fallen in love with the characters. We’ve continued that story directly as a crime story.”

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Our Starwars.com ShoWest coverage of the Warner Bros. “Big Picture” presentation continues with a funny introduction of the upcoming Get Smart comedy, directed by Peter Segal. In the film Steve Carell plays Maxwell Smart, AKA Agent 86 for CONTROL, who battles the forces of KAOS with the more-competent Agent 99 played by Anne Hathaway at his side. The stellar cast also includes Masi Oka, Dwayne “Don’t Call Him The Rock” Johnson, Alan Arkin, Bill Murray and Terence Stamp.

Director Peter Segal and actors Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway introduced a short clip of the film in which Maxwell Smart manages to be mistaken for a terrorist on a plane while on a mission, only to misuse a rather cool gadget in order to escape. Not to give too much away, but the segment serves as a rather hilarious PSA on why you shouldn’t try new James Bond-esque weapons in a tiny airplane bathroom.

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Speed Racer car at ShoWest 2008.
(Photo by Bonnie Burton)

Our Starwars.com ShoWest coverage of the Warner Bros. “Big Picture” presentation started off in high gear with the introduction of the upcoming action film Speed Racer, directed by the Wachowski brothers — who brought us such past hits as the Matrix trilogy and V for Vendetta.

Producer Joel Silver and Speed Racer actors Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci and Matthew Fox presented the new footage from the film, as well as offering their own reasons for why they can’t wait to see the film on the big screen.

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