Warner Bros. has announced a July 8th release for Batman: Gotham Knight, a new anime feature film that hopes to do for The Dark Knight what the Animatrix did for The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. 

Batman: Gotham Knight explores events that happened between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, which opens on July 18th. The creators of the new Batman film commissioned three anime studios, Production I.G., Studio 4C, and Madhouse and five noted anime directors (Shojiro Nishimi, Futoshi Higashide, Hiroshi Morioka, Yasuhiro Aoki and Toshiyuki Kubooka) to create a series of six interrelated Batman adventures based on stories by Josh Olson (A History of Violence), David Goyer (Batman Begins), Alan Burnett (Batman: The Animated Series), Greg Rucka (Whiteout), Jordan Goldberg (producer, The Dark Knight) and Brian Azzarello (100 Bullets). 

Batman: Gotham Knight will be released just ten days before Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight debuts in theaters on July 18th.  The single-disc version of Batman: Gotham Knight will have an MSRP of $24.98, while the two-disc Special Edition will go for $29.98 and will include lots of extra features that will also be included in the Blu-ray hi-def edition (MSRP $34.99).  The single disc edition will include a documentary on Batman villains as well as commentaries from the filmmakers and a preview of the Wonder Woman direct-to-DVD animated feature.  The two-disc edition also includes a documentary on the life and works of Batman creator Bob Kane and a selection of director Bruce Timm's favorite episodes from Batman: The Animated Series.