Warner Bros. Releases First Poster For 'The Dark Knight Rises'

Move aside Green Lantern, the original comic- to -silver screen super hero is back. Warner Bros. released the first visual from The Dark Knight Rises the latest installment in the Batman saga today.

This is the third and scheduled to be the final of a trilogy of Batman films directed by Christopher Nolan. Nolan is credited for reviving the franchise with Batman Begins in 2005 and the massively successful The Dark Knight of 2008. In between these two Batman movies Nolan directed last summer’s blockbuster Inception.

Christian Bale returns as Batman with a few more stars added to the cast this go around. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who worked on Inception with Nolan, will join the cast as an ally within the Gotham Police Department. Love And Other Drugs star Anne Hathaway will take on the role of Selena Kyle/Catwoman.

The movies villain, Bane, is played by another Inception co-star Tom Hardy.

The Dark Knight set some pretty big shoes for its successor. It was only the second movie to gross $500 million at the box office and just the fourth to gross $1 billion worldwide.

Add to that all the attention and mystique that surrounded Heath Ledger‘s death and Academy Award winning Joker performance, this latest installation surely has its work cut out for it.

The Dark Knight Rises is set for release in the summer of 2012.