Coming in at a bum-numbing 165 minute run-time, you'd be forgiven for believing The Dark Knight Rises left next to nothing on the cutting room floor. But in truth, it did, with costume designer Lindy Hemming already revealing in an interview with GQ that extended sequences of Bane's back-story were shot. Now, as the box-office juggernaut breaks the $1 billion gross mark, a new rumour has emerged indicating a Director's Cut may be on its way.

That's according to site Nuke The Fridge, quoting its own “sources” informing them a Director's Cut is being developed at Warner Bros. and will, amongst other things, include “Bane's origin” and “a bit more screentime for Ra's Al Ghul” (leader of the League of Shadows, played by Liam Neeson, MIA for the most part of TDKR). Nuke The Fridge estimates the cut will make the film thirty minutes longer.

Here's what Lindy Hemming originally said about the Bane origin story, mysteriously absent from the final cut. “You should have seen during that sequences [Bane] being injured in his youth. So one of the fundamental hings about his costume is that he has this scar from the back injury. Even if he hasn't got the bulletproof vest on, he still has to wear the waist belt and the braces. In that scene in the prison, where he's learning to fight the same way Batman learned to fight, he's wearing an early version of his waist belt. It's showing support, but it's not the finished one he eventually wears. He's also wearing an early version of his gas mask, all glued together.” She continued, “If you look at the film, unless they've cut it—and I'm sure they haven't—there's a whole early section for Tom Hardy where he's fighting and being taunted by people. He's got chains on him, and he's standing on a wooden thing while people are attacking him. And in that scene, he's wearing a much more ragged, primitive version of the mask.”

Knowing Nolan is somewhat a celluloid perfectionist – the British director has never re-cut a film post-DVD/Blu Ray – a Dark Knight Rises Director's Cut seems unlikely, especially at the film's Blu Ray debut. But perhaps it is possible. Circulating rumours seem to imply Nolan was nudged into dropping certain scenes due to nothing more than the sheer physical size of the print itself. Rumour has it that the chopped footage allowed the film to fit inside IMAX's film platters, whereas the true 'Director's Cut' was too large to be shown to IMAX audiences.

Sounds like hogswallop to us, but then what do we know? Still, fingers crossed.

See our The Dark Knight Rises review here.

Richard Birkett