Given the chance to choose their favorite Chicago movie, voters this summer picked one in which Chicago poses as a whole other city.
Instead of such deeply Chicago-flavored favorites as “The Blues Brothers,” “High Fidelity” and “The Fugitive,” the 12,433 participants in the Chicago Film Office’s online balloting went for “The Dark Knight,” Christopher Nolan’s 2008 smash about Batman (Christian Bale) trying to stop the Joker (Heath Ledger) and his destructive rampage of Gotham City.
“The Dark Knight” was shot mostly in Chicago in the summer of 2007, and Nolan’s team made use of such iconic sights as the Willis Tower (back when it was still Sears’), the Chicago Theatre, Navy Pier and Lower Wacker Drive. Ledger, who died shortly after production wrapped, won a posthumous best supporting actor Oscar for his work
For its victory with 2,333 votes, “The Dark Knight” earns a Jay Pritzker Pavilion screening at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 30, as the final presentation of the 2016 Millennium Park Summer Film Series. Admission is free.
