The Dark Knight Trilogy Gets 4K Remasters

The Dark Knight Trilogy Gets 4K Remasters
By CAMERON BONOMOLO - November 20, 2017

Christopher Nolan's acclaimed Batman trilogy premieres on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray just in time for Christmas.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will release Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises as individual 4K Ultra HD Blu-rays as well as an eight-disc 4K trilogy box set. The 4K remasters were personally overseen by Nolan, whose most recent films — including The Prestige, Inception, Interstellar and Dunkirk — will also see upgrades on the format, which "allows viewers to more accurately experience the filmmaker’s original vision, offering consumers brighter, deeper, more lifelike colors for a home entertainment viewing experience like never before."

All seven films will hit retailers Tuesday, December 19.

During promotion of Nolan's Dunkirk in July, the filmmaker confirmed he was "very much" involved in the process and spoke on what the relatively new 4K and High Dynamic Range technology has to offer:

“The wonderful thing about 4K technology is it gets closer to the resolution that we shot the films on," Nolan told BadTaste.it. "Photochemically finished films of 35 millimeter have at least 6K resolution, IMAX films upwards of 18K, and so as home video formats keep evolving, 4K — particularly with HDR — allows us to give somebody in the home an experience that’s much much closer to what it was like to see the original film prints as projected on film, and I think that’s a very exciting prospect. It’s a long and complicated process that we’re doing right now, but I think the results I’m seeing are very pleasing and very spectacular.”

Warner Bros. has committed to the format, previously releasing other DC Comics adaptations Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman on 4K UHD Blu-ray.

“4K Ultra HD with HDR is an incredibly exciting new home video format that allows a much closer recreation of viewing the original film print,” Nolan said in a Warner Bros. press release announcing the 4K UHD sets. “The deeper color palette comes closer to matching the analogue colors of film and we’ve restored the original theatrical mixes for this release. If you can’t rewatch these films in the theater, this is the best experience you can have in your own home.”

Christian Bale's Batman features on the standalone release of Batman Begins, while Heath Ledger's Joker and Tom Hardy's Bane feature on the standalone releases of The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, respectively. You can view all versions and cover art in the gallery below.

The Dark Knight 4K trilogy is available digitally December 12 and physical sets December 19.