With The Dark Knight Rises officially less than two months away from its domestic debut, a Bat-heavy mega-issue of Empire magazine has hit the shelves. Within the pages, you won’t only find a massive poster that features the Caped Crusader (Christian Bale) on one side and Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) on the other, you’ll find a lot of interesting information on how The Dark Knight Rises came about; what has changed since its earliest imaginings by Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan and David Goyer and the original plans for a villain. Apparently, by as early as the premiere for The Dark Knight, the Warner Bros. executives were all hopped up on Leonardo DiCaprio coming on board to play The Riddler for the final picture in the trilogy (we were half right on that guess). Hit the jump to find out what else has changed and, more importantly, what has stayed the same.

Here are a few highlights from the Empire magazine issue featuring The Dark Knight Rises (via Batman-News):