Tom Hardy’s Bane Had A Very Different Voice In The Dark Knight Rises Preview Before Film Was Released

Before The Dark Knight Rises hit cinemas a decade ago, major changes had to be made to the voice of its main villain. Have a listen to what he sounded like originally:

The 2012 movie brought the curtain down on Christopher Nolan's trilogy, with Batman (Christian Bale) returning to save the world from Bane (Tom Hardy) and his band of mercenaries.

When it was released, the movie was met with rave reviews from fans and critics alike. But it wasn't always that way.

During an early preview of the film at the IMAX back in 2011, audiences complained that they couldn't understand a word Bane was saying throughout the whole thing.

In footage from the screening, the muscle-bound villain's dialogue is pretty indecipherable really - which I guess makes sense, considering his character wears a big old mask.

But reacting to the criticism, Nolan and his team re-dubbed the film before it was officially released, making his speech much clearer.

Speaking to Wired about the origin of his character's menacing voice, Hardy said it was a creation he and the director had worked on.

The 44-year-old told the site: "That was actually a really cool choice that Chris [Nolan] made. Bane quintessentially is Latinx in origin...and I’m not. So I looked at the concept of Latin and found a man called Bartley Gorman, who’s a Romany gypsy. The king of the gypsies, in inverted commas, is a bare-knuckle fighter and a boxer.

Warner Bros.

"And he said [doing Bane-like voice], 'When I get into a ring with a man, and we want to wipe you off the face of the Earth, and he wants to kill me'.

"And I was like, 'This is great'. And I showed Chris. I said, 'Chris, we can either go down a sort of arch Darth Vader route, straight just neutral tone villain voice, or we could try this. And this I’ve been thinking of just in case we’ve got to consider the roots and origins of Bane. But we could get laughed out of the part of it, it might be something that we regret, but it’s your choice ultimately'.

"He says, 'No I think we’ll go with it'. And that was that. And we played with it, and made it a bit more fluid, and now people love it."

The movie could also have been very different had it not been for the untimely death of Heath Ledger, who sadly passed away in 2008.

The 28-year-old played the Joker in Nolan's 2008 release The Dark Knight, and had planned to work on another Batman movie with the director.

Warner Bros.

Speaking to news.com.au about I Am Heath - the documentary about her brother's life and death - the actor's sister Kate Ledger confirmed that he had very much wanted to return to Gotham City.

She said: "He was a really happy person and he had huge plans for his future.

"I spoke to him the night before [he died] and we were laughing and joking.

"He was so proud of what he had done in Batman. And I know he had plans for another Batman.

"He loved working with Chris Nolan and Christian Bale and Gary Oldman.

"He just had the best time ever doing that film.

"When he came home at Christmas, he couldn't wait to tell us all about it, and he was doing the voice and laughing, showing me all the rushes. We had a great time."