The Dark Knight Rises to shoot in Pittsburgh

Christopher Nolan's forthcoming Batman movie 'The Dark Knight Rises' will shoot in Pittsburgh this summer.

The forthcoming epic - starring Christian Bale as the Caped Crusader and Anne Hathaway as Catwoman - will head to the north eastern US city for four to six weeks because of the city's architecture.

Christopher said in a statement: "Pittsburgh is a beautiful city. We have been able to find everything we were looking for here and I am excited to spend the summer in Pittsburgh with our final installment of Batman."

Location scouts have decided on shooting in the Downtown part of the city, with Dawn Keezer from the Pittsburgh Film Office confirming the crew "fell in love" with the area.

She said: "They're still nailing down actual locations but what they really fell in love with was the diversity of the architecture and the gorgeous buildings that we still have in Downtown Pittsburgh and the surrounding areas."

Little is known about the storyline to the film, which also stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tom Hardy - and is due for release in summer 2012.

It was thought it would be the third and last time 'Inception' filmmaker Christopher would be working on a Batman movie, but Warner Bros. president Jeff Robinov recently claimed he may return to reboot the franchise as a producer.

He said: "We have the third Batman, but then we'll have to reinvent Batman. Chris Nolan and Emma Thomas will be producing it, so it will be a conversation with them about what the next phase is."