Wed Nov 7, 2007 — by Mike Gold

Batman Pisses Off Hong Kong

It's Universal, not Warners, that's green this week

Hong Kong is generally considered to be one of the most polluted major cities in the world. Its beautiful skyline is virtually invisible due to a permanent haze, and the water is so dismal that the producers of the next Batman film, The Dark Knight, killed a scene where Batman was to drop from a plane into the harbor because the water quality could pose a significant health risk to the stuntmen.

Well, now the shoe is on the other foot. The Dark Knight producers asked the owners of 60 buildings facing a waterfront to keep their lights and signboards on all night for a week to make for a more visually stunning scene.

For some reason, environmentalists went ape. The amount of energy that would be wasted by such a stunt would be insane in a city half as polluted as Hong Kong.  "We welcome the filming of Batman in Hong Kong, but why do we need to keep the lights on to make the backdrop?" Green Sense project manager Gabrielle Ho told The Associated Press. "It seems like film-making is coming before environmental protection. We believe producers are able to create the same effects via post-productions works, but instead they are asking us to turn on so many lights, wasting so much energy," Ho concluded.

The movie, starring Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Anthony Michael Hall and Michael Caine and based upon characters created by Bill Finger, Jerry Robinson and Robert Kane, is expected to be released July 18th.

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