The Dark Knight Rises Extra Suffers Heart Attack, Dies

Oscar-nominated movie The Dark Knight was a notoriously troubled production, with star Heath Ledger dying not long after the wrap and a cameraman being killed during an on-set incident. However, Christopher Nolan's follow-up The Dark Knight Rises appears to have experienced similar problems after an extra died of a heart attack while filming in New York, according to the New York Post.

Warner Bros and the Screen Actors Guild have confirmed that during shooting of a live fight scene in November, one male extra died of "natural causes" while wandering around on a set-break. A statement read, "It was during a period when the film was shooting a huge sequence with several hundred extras in the Wall Street area. But the male extra had been rehearsing in another location away from the set. While on a break, he'd walked away and died of natural causes". The death is the latest on-set incident in Hollywood this year - a stuntman was killed while working on the action flick The Expendables 2 in October and actors were injured shooting scenes for Resident Evil: Retribution. It was also reported how Brad Pitt had helped an injured extra while filming a frantic action scene on his zombie apocalypse movie World War Z, though the actor later played down the incident.

The Dark Knight Rises is already one of the most anticipated films of 2012 and will see Christian Bale reprise his role as the Caped Crusader. Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tom Hardy are amongst the new additions to the cast, with the latter playing the mysterious villain Bane. The film is scheduled to hit cinemas on July 20, 2012.