‘Dark Knight Rises’ Teaser to Play Before Final ‘Potter’

Remember when Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros. released the first teaser for The Dark Knight? It was late July 2007, a year before the film was set to hit theaters. Although all we got was audio set to an image (as seen in the thumbnail) of a decomposing bat logo, it drove the hype machine crazy. Well, something similar is expected for The Dark Knight Rises, which comes out next July. 

SuperHeroHype has an inside source saying that a "Rises" teaser of about a minute and a half in length will play before showings of this year's big Warner Bros. summer tentpole: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. Considering SHH reported The Dark Knight teaser would run before The Simpsons four years ago and the teaser went online the morining of, I'd believe them.

If you're keeping tabs on other Warner Bros. tentpoles, you might be wondering if "Harry Potter," by far the biggest event of the summer, will also host a trailer for the sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. SHH reports that will be the case, in addition to a trailer for the studio's other big holiday film, Happy Feet Two. WB is also set to release Steven Soderbergh's Contagion in October, but that trailer, while out soon, will not be coupled with "Deathly Hallows Part 2."

My guess is we'll get something similar to The Dark Knight. Maybe a tad bit of footage this time as a second audio-only tease would feel very unlike Nolan. Considering we've seen a snapshot of Bane, I would suspect any footage we get might give us a split-second peek at him at the most. Otherwise, I wouldn't bank on much more than some confusing context, footage of familiar characters and oh yeah, fire rising.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 arrives in theaters next Friday.