Christian Bale (37 page)

Additionally, whether it was because of the film's subject matter, Christian's CNN incident, or poor reviews,
The Flowers of War
bombed in the U.S. market, earning just $1,619 per location in limited release in December.
The Wrap
declared, “Christian Bale couldn't entice U.S. moviegoers to go see
Flowers of War,
the most expensive movie in Chinese history. Nor could director Zhang Yimou of
Hero
fame.”

(On January 24, 2012, the Oscar nominations were announced.
The Flowers of War
was China's official submission for a 2012 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, but it failed to earn an Oscar nomination.)

But before all of that happened, back when Christian had just started filming
Flowers of War
, he was already thinking ahead. He was transforming his body, knowing that he'd have to bulk up again for his role in the third Batman movie,
The Dark Knight Rises
.

Christian initially signed up for three
Batman
movies before he'd even made
Batman Begins
as Warner Bros. was banking on the movies being a smash success. Jonathan Nolan revealed in March 2010: “Will we do a third movie? It's got to be the right story. You can't make something like
The Dark Knight
and then come out with something disappointing. The fact is I have to! I've signed up! Chris doesn't. So I'm in a bit of a fix if he says he doesn't want to!”

As he spoke those words, Jonathan Nolan was already working furiously on a script with Christopher who hates giving away any spoilers, simply revealing: “My brother is writing a script for me and we'll wait to see how it turns. He's struggling to put it together into the epic story that you want it to be! Without getting into specifics, the key thing that makes the third film a great possibility for us is that we want to finish the story. And in viewing it as the finishing of a story rather than an infinitely blowing up the balloon and expanding the story. We have a great ensemble, that's one of the attractions of doing another film, since we've been having a great time for years.”

The challenge for Nolan then would be to find a villain, or villains, who not only matches up to Christian's Batman portrayal, but matches up to that of The Joker by the incomparable Heath
Ledger. Fans had been hitting the Internet for months, ever since it was confirmed there would be a third film and had been pushing their own favorite villians to take on the Caped Crusader. Many fans wanted Johnny Depp as The Riddler or Angelina Jolie as Catwoman or even Phillip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin. But Nolan had dozens of villains to choose from and remained tight-lipped on which one, and even which A-list star, he wanted in
The Dark Knight Rises
. All he said as casting began, with a wry smile, was: “It won't be Mr. Freeze.”

By April 2011 the cast was confirmed. Anne Hathaway would play Catwoman and British actor Tom Hardy would be Bane, considered one of Batman's most deadly and powerful foes. Bane's strength is matched only by his superior IQ and in the graphic novels, he is one of the few villains who was able to deduce Batman's identity within a year.

And Hardy's
Inception
costar Joseph Gordon-Levitt was cast as Alberto Falcone, the son of mob boss and major
Batman Begins
villain Carmine Falcone, who was played by Tom Wilkinson. Oscar winner Marion Cotillard (
Inception
,
La Vie en Rose
) was cast as Miranda Tate, a Wayne Enterprises board member eager to help a still-grieving Bruce Wayne resume his father's philanthropic endeavours for Gotham.

Fans of Batman were also delighted with the news that David S. Goyer was involved with the script. Goyer has a huge comic book, graphic novel, and superhero background and has been involved in both previous Batman movies, providing the story for both and cowriting the screenplay for
Batman Begins
. He also wrote and directed the hugely popular
Blade
vampire movies starring Wesley Snipes as well as
Crow: City of Angels
and produced
Ghost Rider
with Nicolas Cage. Goyer is also screenwriting
Ghost Rider 2
and
X Men Origins: Magneto
and collaborated with Nolan on a new
Superman
franchise with the first movie,
Superman: Man of Steel
, slated for release in summer 2013.

Ironically Christian almost ended up as Superman instead of Batman after auditioning for the role back in 2003 before
Batman Begins
and Bryan Singer's
Superman
hit screens. Director Wolfgang Petersen was all set to direct
Batman vs. Superman
, a big budget outing to set two of DC Comics biggest superheroes against each other.

And Christian was one of two actors shortlisted for the part of Krypton's favorite son, the other one being
Black Hawk Down
star Josh Hartnett. The movie almost happened but then Warner Bros got a single script for a Superman film from JJ Abrams while Nolan began working on Batman, so the studio decided to go with two separate movies. Abrams ended up making
Superman
with Brandon Routh as the Man of Steel while Nolan pushed ahead with Batman and Petersen went off to film
Troy
with Brad Pitt.

Petersen revealed: “It was pretty close. And then the studio got a single Superman script I think from JJ Abrams at that time and Warner Bros chief Alan Horn was so torn because it was such a fascinating concept to do a Batman versus Superman film. And I think it still would be fun to do that. But the studio decided to try separate versions of Superman and Batman and then maybe think about down the road if they want to bring them together in one film.”

However, Nolan seems adamant that he won't be putting Superman and Batman into a film together anytime soon. He revealed: “A lot of people have approached Superman in a lot of different ways. I only know that the way that has worked for us, that's what I know how to do. Batman exists in a world where he is the only superhero and a similar approach to the Man of Steel would assure the integrity needed for the film. Each serves the internal logic of the story. They have nothing to do with each other.”

It appeared that Christian would be free to concentrate on
Terminator 5
after finishing with
The Dark Knight Rises. Terminator
Salvation
director McG had already begun working on a script as early as March 2010, and he revealed that John Connor is a big part of the movie and would possibly show up in
Terminator 6
, too.

McG revealed: “We're very far down the line with the story for that—for the next picture and even the picture after that. We can't wait to get back at it and show the world what becomes of that war and how we master time travel because we stayed away from time travel in
Salvation
and I missed it. John Connor is going to travel back in time and he's going to have to galvanize the militaries of the world for an impending Skynet invasion. They've figured out time travel to the degree where they can send more than one naked entity. So you're going to have hunter killers and transports and harvesters and everything arriving in our time and John Connor fighting back with conventional military warfare, which I think is going to be awesome. It will be more of a chase movie with a new Terminator on your ass! I also think he's going to meet a scientist that's going to look a lot like present-day Robert Patrick, talking about stem cell research and how we can live as idealised younger versions of ourselves. I think the next film is going to be very pleasing and very surprising to the fans. That's the goal.”

However, by March 2011, McG was out and other directors' names were being thrown into the mix. While Universal Studios was in the process of enticing a director to jump on board after Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg, and James Cameron all reportedly turned down the offer to helm
Terminator 5
, and the next Terminator movie had been dropped from Christian's IMDb page.

But there is hope the fifth movie in the franchise will make it to the big screen as Justin Lin, director of
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
and
Fast Five
, revealed he had been in talks with original
Terminator
star Arnold Schwarzenegger after the former governor of California told his reps to start looking for movie offers once he stepped down from political office.

Lin said:
“Terminator
was one of my favorite films growing up. And I feel I have a take that I would love to see and I've talked with Arnold and we've talked and we'll see. Again, I would love to do it but it has to be the right circumstances. It has to be with the right people. And there're other projects too. But I'm in a position now that I can choose more than I could a year ago, two years ago. So that's something that is potentially in my future.”

As for Christian, it remains to be seen if he's asked to return to the role of John Connor but he spent most of 2011 filming
The Dark Knight Rises
for a July 2012 release. After that his schedule was pretty open, with just two future movie projects listed.

One is
The Last Photograph
, in which he will play one of two men who are inspired to travel to war-torn Afghanistan by a photograph they see. The other is
Concrete Island
, in which he will star as an architect who finds himself stranded on a man-made island between two highways with only the contents of his car in his possession. Both movies are scheduled for release in 2013.

As Christian's career progresses, he has been trying to steer clear of the Hollywood machine that happily eats up and spits out its stars. He's forged a career on his own terms. You won't see Christian at parties or red carpet premieres for movies other than his own. He continues to be notoriously private, yet at the same time, he acknowledges that his fans have sustained him through a career that has had its share of ups and downs.

Throughout Christian's twenty-five years of making movies, he has always done things his way. He's refused to play the Hollywood game and, indeed, has managed to do an end run around Tinseltown's establishment, bypassing traditional publicity for Internet marketing, defiantly bearded and unshaven on a publicity tour.

The Q Scores are the industry standard for measuring familiarity and appeal. Stars like Tom Hanks, Clint Eastwood, and Will Smith are routinely ranked at the top for both familiarity
and their Q Score. Henry Schaefer, Executive Vice President of Marketing Evaluations, The Q Scores Company, said this about Christian: “His awareness is at 55 percent familiarity among the total population but because he won the Oscar in 2011, his Q Score actually went up to 16 percent.

“Christian Bale's family disputes, which were publicized shortly after the release of the movie, and the overwhelming coverage of the Heath Ledger death most likely suppressed a lot of the positive acclaim he could have potentially achieved as a result of the success of
The Dark Knight
. While Christian Bale benefited greatly with respect to his awareness, it did not translate into a significant gain in his appeal overall.

“However in the past couple of years, the demographic that follows Christian has changed slightly. He is now more popular with men in the 18 to 35 age group, but he appeals more to women 35 and over. But he is still below the average Q Score for male stars, who generally are in the 20 percent range.”

It is perhaps a perfect description of Christian's image. He remains an enigmatic contradiction—famous but not popular. To some of his critics, Christian's approach to acting is all dazzling technique—with the weight losses and the accents, but he hasn't made a deeper emotional connection with the audience. Said John Farr,
Huffington Post
, “His acting chops are prodigious, but he seems to me to be all technique and no heart; we get buckets of perfectly formed ice, but very little fire. I see nothing behind his eyes.”

In the spring of 2010, when news outlets reported that Christian was about to apply for U.S. citizenship, the British media tried to gauge reaction. A number of U.K. celebrities living in America change their citizenship, and the reaction can be quite negative. Pierce Brosnan became a U.S. citizen in 2004 but assured his native Ireland, “I found a whole new life and identity in America but my heart and soul will be forever Irish.” Welsh-born
Anthony Hopkins angered his hometown of Port Talbot when he became a U.S. citizen in 2000; however, he declared, “America has been very generous to me, magnanimous really. I thought it would be good to give something back.” Hopkins added, “I love Wales where I was born.”

But when James Campbell, the mayor of Haverfordwest, Wales, Christian's birthplace, was asked if people would be angry if Christian became a U.S. citizen, he replied, “It's not as if we're losing a national treasure.”

True Baleheads understand and appreciate this star who does not seek fame. Christian summed it up when he said: “At first I was somewhat hesitant to do the role of Batman. I mean, after all, Batman is an icon. But I remember, clear as a day, being at the grocery store the day the movie opened and this little boy saw me. He couldn't have been more than five years old. He just walked right up to me and hugged me and hugged me. He hugged me and I was so moved by it that I hugged him back. Then he looked up at me and said: ‘You're my hero.' And in that moment, I knew that not only as an actor that I had done my job but that I had made the right decision to play Batman.”

And while he's never looked back, Christian has also pushed the way forward not only for himself but for others, opening up the gates to make it acceptable for young British actors to play American superheroes. There would be an outcry if an American was chosen for a role as quintessentially British as Bond. Producers tried once to use an actor that wasn't British, the Australian George Lazenby, and it was a total disaster. Lazenby was hired in 1968 more for his fighting skills than his acting prowess for
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
, and he quit as Bond before the movie had even premiered. Sean Connery was soon brought back out of Bond retirement for
Diamonds Are Forever
in 1971 before Roger Moore took over the role. Even before Daniel Craig was hired as the latest incarnation of Bond, the actors being bandied around for
the much-sought-after role were all British—Colin Farrell, Clive Owen, Ioan Gruffudd, and Christian's old pal Ewan McGregor.