The Dark Knight Rises Trailer, Featuring Hines Ward For Some Reason

After hundreds of red herrings and bootlegged videos, The Dark Knight Rises' trailer finally hit the internet Monday, and among lots of explosions and some chilling background music, it also features Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward. "How did they possibly work Hines Ward into a Batman movie", you ask? Well he's outrunning an imploding football field, obviously.

Roethlisberger and about a dozen of his veteran teammates will take part in the filming of Dark Knight Rises playing -- what else? -- football players at a familiar venue for them, Heinz Field.

The Steelers quarterback has become close with Thomas Tull, the film's executive producer who joined the Steelers ownership group two years ago. Tull helped influence the shooting of the movie in Pittsburgh and he's been trying to get the Steelers involved. Chrstopher Nolan is directing the third in his Batman trilogy. The movie stars Christian Bale as Batman and Anne Hathaway as Catwoman.

"I'm kind of getting everybody together," Roethlisberger told the Post-Gazette today. "I heard it's going to be a neat thing at the stadium. I don't think it will be a big part, it's not like we're chasing Batman down or anyting. It's something neat that in 10 years or 20 years we can tell our kids we were in a movie. Thomas does movies big and I'm sure it will be a big-time movie and something fun to be part of."

Among teammates expected to join him are Hines Ward, Willie Colon, Maurkice Pouncey, Mike Wallace, Heath Miller, Aaron Smith, Ryan Clark, Troy Polamalu, James Farrior and Casey Hampton.

Wait, so "Featuring Hines Ward for some reason" = "Ben Roethlisberger organized all this"? That sorta ruins it, I think. On the other hand, the trailer looks awesome, and it certainly looks like the entire Steelers team gets blown up, so we all have that to look forward to!