In The Batman, Bruce has yet to learn how to balance his true self with the mask he’s supposed to wear as a billionaire playboy. But there was an even bigger comic book influence: the late Darwyn Cooke’s trippy, supernatural Ego, which examines the deep divide within Bruce and the crisis of identity he constantly faces because of his Batman persona. Gus Van Sant’s Last Days was one major inspiration for this take on Bruce Wayne, with Reeves comparing that movie’s fictionalized version of tragic ‘90s rock star Kurt Cobain to his Dark Knight. That has not really been done so much in the movies.” “A lot of them he’s hallucinating and completely dissociating. “In the movies, Batman’s always been portrayed as quite practical, matter-of-fact, in the reasons why he becomes Batman, but in the comics, a lot of them are about quite esoteric subjects,” Pattinson says. He found his way in through stories that took deep dives into the psychology of Bruce Wayne and the toll that being Batman had on his mental state. A fan of Christian Bale and Michael Keaton’s portrayals of the character, Pattinson nevertheless planned to explore something new with his version. To prepare for the role, Pattinson read nothing but Batman comics for months, even while shooting Christopher Nolan’s Tenet. I thought that was really fun to see a version of him that definitely hadn’t mastered himself, that was definitely in the process of becoming.” He’s addicted to being Batman because it’s really an attempt to cope with those things in the past that we don’t see. “I wanted you to see an imperfect Batman who would be driven to do what he’s doing in a way that was almost like a drug. “I didn’t want the arc to be ‘he becomes Batman and faces off with this particular rogues gallery character,’” Reeves explains. The director envisioned The Batman as a noir detective story set outside of DCEU continuity, and it wouldn’t star Affleck’s seasoned, graying Dark Knight but a vigilante entering the second year of his crime-fighting career, someone who was past his origin story but still in the process of figuring things out. Reeves, a lifelong Batman fan, found the answer in comics chronicling the character’s early days, including Year One, as well as in classic noir films, such as Chinatown, Taxi Driver, and The French Connection. Cloverfield and Planet of the Apesdirector Matt Reeves was tapped to helm a new version of the project, but he faced the same conundrum as his predecessor: after so many iterations of the character on the big screen, what could Reeves do to make his take fresh? “You just want someone to be terrified after it.”īefore Pattinson signed on to play the World’s Greatest Detective, Ben Affleck was set to direct and star in a very different Batman solo movie. “It’s not theatrical,” he says of the Dark Knight’s approach in the “vengeance” scene. Savage beatings are one way this Batman wants to “spread around mythology,” Pattinson tells Den of Geek by phone on a cold, gloomy day in January. “I said to Rob, ‘I really want to say it into the guy’s face when he’s basically dead.’” “How it was initially staged was the guy says, ‘Who are you?’ And Batman says, ‘I’m vengeance,’ and then beats everybody up,” reveals a much friendlier Pattinson, who cracks up while explaining how he helped tweak the scene to make it even more horrifying. “Who the hell are you supposed to be?” asks their leader, who’s about to find out, one punch at a time, that Robert Pattinson’s unhinged, hyper-violent Dark Knight is no laughing matter. You know the scene: the Batman stands before a gang of skull-faced goons who think this weirdo in a costume is a joke.
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