First Look at Anne Hathaway as “Selina Kyle”

If you haven’t figured it out yet, Christopher Nolan loves him a realistic approach to comic book characters. It’s why Batman drives a tank, after all. So today when pictures of Selina Kyle (note there’s no Catwoman billing in there), the Internet was more than a little surprised. Namely due to the fact that Selina Kyle-not-Catwoman has no cat features to her costume whatsoever.

It’s not too far a stretch to imagine that Selina Kyle’s rise to fame as Catwoman will be somewhat similar to Harvey Dent’s, in which Catwoman is at first a condescending nickname that becomes an alias (You all remember Harvey Two-Face, yes?).

Now, it’s also worth noting that she’s wearing very fancy goggles and driving the Batpod; could the image be from the film’s end-game? Will the traditional cat cowl and goggles (we did see pictures of a stunt double recently carrying an Earth Kitt style Catwoman mask) factor in earlier in the film than this image? Or maybe afterwards, based on the outcome? Who knows. I’ve got the utmost faith in Nolan so far, but hopefully he won’t drop the ball in the final act.

There’s a few more pictures of Hathaway’s stunt double performing the scene up above, which appears to be being filmed on the same set of steps we’ve seen a few other fights being filmed on lately, fueling the rumor that this scene is from some kind of an endgame scenario for the film. You can see those on Superherohype.

Also starring Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordan Levitt, The Dark Knight Rises hits theaters July 20, 2012, and is the conclusion of Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed “Dark Knight Saga”.