Wait Until Robert Pattinson's Agents Hear More About This Batman Guy
News of his casting received some backlash at first, but it looks like Robert Pattinson is going to make one hell of a Batman. Perhaps, by the way, we can forgive ourselves for the initial confusion—even Pattinson had to sell his own agents on the idea of himself as Bruce Wayne, apparently. In a new interview with Total Film, Pattinson admitted that the news surprised his representatives. That's putting it mildly. "I’d never really thought I was anywhere close to doing [The Batman], and especially with the other parts I was attracted to at the time,” Pattinson said. “Even my agents were like, ‘Oh, interesting. I thought you only wanted to play total freaks?’ And I was like, ‘He is a freak!'”
Poor guy. Will Pattinson ever outrun the shadow of Ephraim Winslow, his batshit sailor from The Lighthouse? Seriously, though. We hope that Pattinson's team picked up a Batman comic since the man was dubbed the next Bruce Wayne. That said, we're very much excited to see this particular freak on the big screen. Here's everything we know so far about the new Batman trilogy, including its cast and plot rumors, plus looks at the Cape Crusader's new suit, motorcycle, and Batmobile.
Is there a trailer?
There are multiple! The latest one dropped on Christmas Day and even came with a title: The Bat and the Cat. True to its name, it featured multiple scenes between Robert Pattinson’s gloomy Batman and Zoe Kravitz’s comparatively perky Catwoman and her alter ego Selina Kyle.
In one revealing scene, Catwoman tells Pattinson's Batman, "If we don’t stand up, no one will.” To which he replies, “You got a lot of cats.” “I have a thing for strays,” Catwoman responds coyly.
Do we sense a budding romance? The rest of the trailer shows the pair teaming up to kick some major bad-guy ass throughout the crime-ridden streets of Gotham. Though suspicious of each other at first, the two action heroes eventually seem to find their stride fighting together. “The bat and the cat. It’s got a nice ring,” says Kravitz’s Catwoman.
The first trailer for The Batman debuted in October, and it made good on all of the darkness that was teased over the past couple of years via stills and set leaks. The preview focuses on the battle between Pattinson's Batman, and well, all of Arkham City. (Also: Pattinson's Batman voice? Not bad!) It also highlights his beef with The Riddler, which looks like a letter-swapping back and forth that rings as creepily as you'd expect. We also got new looks at Catwoman, Commissioner Gordon, and even a beefy Colin Ferrell as the Penguin. Oh, and Pattinson pummels a bunch of goons. Never gets old.
Above all the trailers, sneak peeks, posters, and whatnot, a new clip from The Batman might just give us the best idea of the loop we'll be thrown into. By the looks of it, all of Gotham's finest are attending a funeral, when the Riddler strikes. We won't spoil the exact terror that goes down in this one, but it involves a car crash and Bruce Wayne looking characteristically morbid. Batman! Check out the clip below.
Where will it fall on the Adam West to Christopher Nolan grit scale?
Medium gritty? Back when we heard about the Affleck departure, Reeves told The Hollywood Reporter what his game-plan was looking like: "It's very much a point of view-driven, noir Batman tale," he said. "It's told very squarely on his shoulders, and I hope it's going to be a story that will be thrilling but also emotional. It’s more Batman in his detective mode that we’ve seen in the films."
It’s a relief that we’re getting a detective noir take on the hero, considering Zack Snyder’s Batman (Reeves’s trilogy has no connection to that corner of the DCEU, by the way) had Bruce Wayne in a Hurt Locker suit beating on those weird desert dragons.
Pattinson seems on board with the more-brains-than-brawn take, too. "He’s a complicated character… His morality is a little bit off,” Pattinson told The New York Times of Bruce Wayne. “He's not the golden boy, unlike almost every other comic-book character. There is a simplicity to his worldview, but where it sits is strange, which allows you to have more scope with the character."
He also told the Times, “Batman’s not a hero… He’s a complicated character. I don’t think I could ever play a real hero—there’s always got to be something a little bit wrong. I think it’s because one of my eyes is smaller than the other one.”
Farrell described Reeves' script as "beautiful, dark, moving," and "really gorgeous," while Peter Sarsgaard, who will play Gil Colso, compared the film's tone to that of the alt-rock band The Pixies, saying that the film will be "raw" and "not sanitized." Pattinson, meanwhile, promises a Batman "just as crazy and perverse" as the characters he's become known for playing in indie films.
Any chance of Battinson meeting up with Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker?
If you’re going by Joker director Todd Phillips’s word, then probably not. When the Los Angeles Times asked him if Joaquin’s Joker would square off against any version of Batman, he said, “We would never do that. No, no.”
And when presented with the theory that Arthur Fleck inspired the version of the Joker who would go on to fight Batman, Phillips left things a little more open-ended. “Maybe Joaquin’s character inspired the Joker,” he said. “You don’t really know. His last line in the movie is. ‘You wouldn’t get it.’ There’s a lot going on in there that’s interesting.”
Plus, now with rumors of Barry Keoghan's potential Jokering, we're much more likely to see a different actor than Phoenix play the villain opposite Pattinson.
Is The Batman Part of the DCEU?
Nope. In a new interview with Esquire UK, Matt Reeves—director of The Batman—revealed why his superhero outing won't take place in the DC Extended Universe, AKA the DCEU, AKA the vaguely defined multiverse where Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman and Jason Momoa's Aquaman live.
“Ben [Affleck] had been working on a version of the script,” Reeves told the magazine, “and I said, ‘Here’s the thing: I respect that the DC Universe has become an extended universe and all the movies were kind of connected. But another Batman film, it shouldn’t have to carry the weight of connecting the characters from all those other movies. I didn’t want them in there.”
Apologies to Batfleck, but it's refreshing to see the director of a superhero film leaving the presently fashionable shared-universe experience behind. So you can safely rule out Pattinson's Caped Crusader entering any multiversal portals.
When will it be released?
Like every recent film, production here has not been spared from Covid-19-related delays. It disbanded the first time due to the arrival of the pandemic, and just days after production resumed, Warner Bros. announced that The Batman had once again halted production because a crew member had tested positive for Covid-19. Shortly after that announcement, Vanity Fair reported that Pattinson was the individual who tested positive for the virus. Warner Bros. did not confirm these reports. The day after that news, The Daily Mail broke the story that The Batman began production once again, without Robert Pattinson, trying to get as much non-Pattinson scenes shot as possible while the star quarantines at home.
All that said, the film is currently slated to hit theaters on March 4, 2022.
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