Rumors fired around the net yesterday as a faux run time was announced for the rough cut of The Dark Knight Rises. MTV reported that Warner Bros. execs had received a private screening of the pic, and that it was 4 hours long.
“The Dark Knight Rises is real and finished, presumably in the form of a four-hour rough cut. There’s no official word on the reaction to the screening, as of yet.”
Today they retracted that statement, with a less-than-believable “woops” at the bottom of the original article:
“[Ed. Note: A previous mention of a “four-hour rough cut” of “The Dark Knight Rises” was intended as a humorous exaggeration; our columnist did not have any information on the actual length of the director’s rough cut.]”
That’s not to say that MTV isn’t funny, or “humorous” as they put it. I’m just saying that the original statement was not funny. It wasn’t obvious that they were exaggerating and I don’t see how anyone could have thought that. And the immediate aftermath of blog-explosions on the purported 4 hour run time is evidence that everyone took MTV’s reporting seriously. Lesson learned?
At best, fans are now chalking up the news as “Dark Knight Rises exists!” But currently no word is out on the film’s length. That means we don’t know if Tom Hardy‘s phenomenal acting chops will get their due time or just how long we get to drool over Marion Cotillard once the film opens on July 20th, 2012.
As always though, when we hear any news we’ll let you know.