With the new ‘Batman’ coming to screens, the excitement is palpable. Matt Reeves stoked the enthusiasm in a virtual panel for DC’s Fandome when he said that Robert Pattinson was the only one who could have played the role as he envisioned.
A dark shadow is looming over Gotham. The crusader is back again to wreak vengeance on the lives of criminals who have lined the streets of the city for decades. What will happen?
Highlights —
- Why RPattz?
- Batman the sleuth
- Matt Reeves can’t get enough
Matt Reeves is crafting a Batman story for the new age. The no-holds-barred action thriller is all set to be released in 2022, and Matt Reeves was at the DC Fandome virtual panel to stoke the excitement.
Robert Pattinson
Many critics in the 2010s would’ve seen Robert Pattinson as the lovey-dovey rom-com hero with no future except in romance. He had come into the field as the teenage heartthrob Edward Cullen, a rather sparkly vampire who fell in love with Kirsten Stewart. He also acted in ‘Remember Me’.
He acted in ‘Water for Elephants’, where he played a circus man trying to escape. While his acting was always praised, he was typecast as the person who was the chocolate boy for Hollywood. After the list of mainstream movies, he switched to independent film.
He acted under directors like the legendary Werner Herzog. His U-turn in acting included the colonial drama, ‘The Lost City of Z’ and the grindhouse thriller ‘Good Time’.
‘Good Time’ established him as a capable thriller actor. Later, the film ‘The Lighthouse’ cemented his reputation. In an interview with “Indiewire” relating to the film, he said, “It was nice to be in a pressure-cooker environment. It’s always easier to perform when you are in your body. It’s impossible to push a wheelbarrow. The more physical a part is, the easier it is to bring some realism to it. Because of the nature of the story, we push physicality. There aren’t too many parts where you can let fly with your body without feeling out of place. It was a joy to do it”.
His turn into serious films is what has made him uniquely capable for the Batman role. After all, the Batman in Matt Reeve’s film will be very different from any other dark knight we have seen on screen.
The Batman
Matt Reeves wanted Pattinson as Batman because the Batman he’s depicting is the super sleuth. The words spoken by Pattinson in the trailer, “I am vengeance“, are a throwback to Batman of the 1930s and 1940s. Batman was unbelievably violent and scarred by the crimes around him.
The crimes had taken his parents away from him and set him on a long path to vengeance. He was fighting dark, twisted fiends at night and making sure Gotham was safe throughout the day.
In this process, Batman became a detective. One of the most poignant Batman stories to come out in this era was drawn by Ted McKeever.
The story takes place in the dark neighbourhood of Gotham. Batman is mourning a person killed, and he confesses that he spends his days in mourning. He is the only one in the city that remembers the countless faceless people who die due to violence.
The Batman Pattinson is portraying is also sad and violent, a result of a city that has been in violence ever since the beginning.
This complicates things and makes Pattinson one of the most capable heroes for portraying the dark knight in the new movie.
In ‘Good Time’, Pattinson was similarly acting towards making himself click. In ‘The Lighthouse’, he was performing with all of his body. And in ‘Batman’…
Matt Reeves Enters
At the DC Fandome, Matt Reeves ended up exclaiming, “And I thought, What if Rob doesn’t want to play Batman? This will be a disaster, and then it turned out that you, completely on your own, had a whole path to the same thing, which is that you had been obsessed with Batman for years. And when you found out that we were doing this version, you were very interested”.
Matt Reeves is fond of Robert Pattinson, and he doesn’t keep it a secret. Overall, he has been focusing on creating a character that fits RPattz like a glove. And so, we’re finally getting a Batman who is Batman in every way that is important, violent, gloomy, and yet, charming.
Robert Pattinson’s turn as Batman promises to be interesting. Matt Reeves has shown repeated excitement in the prospects for the film as well. With the thrillers behind him, RPattz promises to be one of the best people to take over the mantle of the dark knight.
