While scouting for shooting locations in October 2006, location manager Robin Higgs visited Liverpool, concentrating mainly along the city’s waterfront. Other candidates included Yorkshire, Glasgow, and parts of London. In August 2006, one of the film’s producers, Charles Roven, stated that its principal photography would begin in March 2007, but filming was pushed back to April. For its release in IMAX theaters, Nolan shot four major sequences in that format, including the Joker’s introduction, and said that he wished that it were possible to shoot the entire film in IMAX: “if you could take an IMAX camera to Mount Everest or outer space, you could use it in a feature movie.” For fifteen years Nolan had wanted to shoot in the IMAX format, and he used it also for “quiet scenes which pictorially we thought would be interesting.”
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Director Christopher Nolan (far left) and actor Heath Ledger (in make-up) filming a scene in The Dark Knight with an IMAX camera
Warner Bros. chose to film in Chicago for 13 weeks, because Nolan had had a “truly remarkable experience” filming part of Batman Begins there. Instead of using the Chicago Board of Trade Building as the location for the headquarters of Wayne Enterprises, as Batman Begins did, The Dark Knight used the Richard J. Daley Center. While filming in Chicago, the film was given the false title Rory’s First Kiss to lower the visibility of production, but the local media eventually uncovered the ruse. Richard Roeper of The Chicago Sun-Times commented on the absurdity of the technique, “Is there a Bat-fan in the world that doesn’t know Rory’s First Kiss is actually The Dark Knight, which has been filming in Chicago for weeks?” Production of The Dark Knight in Chicago generated $45 million in the city’s economy and created thousands of jobs. For the film’s prologue involving the Joker, the crew shot in Chicago from April 18, 2007 to April 24, 2007. They returned to shoot from June 9, 2007 to early September. Shooting locations included Navy Pier, 330 North Wabash, James R. Thompson Center, LaSalle Street, The Berghoff, Hotel 71, the old Brach’s factory, the old Van Buren Street Post Office and Wacker Drive. Pinewood Studios, near London, was the primary studio space used for the production. Marina City was in the background throughout the movie.
While planning a stunt with the Batmobile in a special effects facility near Chertsey, England in September 2007, technician Conway Wickliffe was killed when his car crashed. The film is dedicated to both Ledger and Wickliffe. The following month in London at the defunct Battersea Power Station, a rigged 200-foot fireball was filmed, reportedly for an opening sequence, prompting calls from local residents who feared a terrorist attack on the station. A similar incident occurred during the filming in Chicago, when an abandoned Brach’s candy factory (which was Gotham Hospital in the film) was demolished.
Filming took place in Hong Kong from November 6 to November 11, 2007, at the Central-Mid-Levels escalators, Queen’s Road, The Center, and International Finance Centre. The city’s walled city of Kowloon influenced the Narrows in Batman Begins. The shoot hired helicopters and C-130 aircraft. Officials expressed concern over possible noise pollution and traffic. In response, letters sent to the city’s residents promised that the sound level would approximate noise decibels made by buses. Environmentalists also criticized the filmmakers’ request to tenants of the waterfront skyscrapers to keep their lights on all night in order to enhance the cinematography, describing it as a waste of energy. Cinematographer Wally Pfister found the city officials a “nightmare”, and ultimately Nolan had to create Batman’s jump from a skyscraper (which Bale had looked forward to performing) digitally.