The Batman

Unlike the MCU or even the DCEU, The Batman exists in its own bubble, so it doesn't need an end credits stinger to set up the next movie. That said, the final ...

I can’t say whether we would do him specifically in the movies or not.” “The conception that I wanted was that we’d go back to the Conrad Veidt, The Man Who Laughs inspiration, which is the Bob Kane, Bill Finger reference [for the character]. And in that, obviously that guy has a congenital disease. Reeves also turned to the story of real-life figure Joseph Merrick, whose life became the subject of David Lynch’s The Elephant Man. Merrick developed severe deformities that landed him in the mean-spirited “freak shows” of Victorian era Britain and also made him the target of verbal and physical abuse.

The Gotham of this latest telling of "Batman" brings matters of class and diversity into the light. Image: Robert Pattison as Batman and Zoe Kravitz as ...

“We grow up with the Batman universe very alive in our culture,” the actor, who is Venezuelan and Lebanese, said. Selina waitresses at a nightclub and lives in a rundown apartment with her friend Anika in a humbler part of the city, compared to Wayne. And his character initially rejects the caped crusader as a vigilante. “The Batman” has the grit of a 1970s crime thriller in which a relentless detective hunts down a serial killer. She grows up in the absence of her father without the safety net of a fortune. And his path as a hero is murky.

The new movie stars Robert Pattinson as our newest, very emo Batman, exploring a new conspiracy-thriller version of Gotham City that's full of rain and crooked ...

I’m excited for people to see that scene, because the version of this character he plays is very cool. I also liked the idea of her looking at Bruce and thinking, “What are you doing with all your resources?” He’s blind to the idea that his money could do things for people, and so obsessed with the idea of being Batman that he doesn’t understand that there might be tools he can use to make a difference in other ways. That was the critical conception from the beginning that we held onto through the making of the movie. So the character’s name is the Unseen Prisoner, and he’s the guy in the cell next to the Riddler at the end of the movie. There’s a moment where Jeffrey comes in after Batman punches him to get out of a situation, and he goes, “Man, you really could have pulled that punch.” And, without any irony, Batman goes, “I did.” All the humor from Batman comes from the fact that he has no sense of humor. There was the notion that he would start in an appealing version of a desire for vengeance. To me, if we were going to do a grounded iteration of Gotham and this character, he should feel like he was of our world. I listen to music when I write, and when I was writing the first act and trying to get into the mindset of what the movie would be, for some reason, I put on Nirvana and “Something in the Way” and it just clicked for me. It was one of those things where they were like, “Is this important to you?” And I was like, “It is.” Not a cheap needle drop, but a super important one thematically. The way that Cobain was obsessed with his music, but also had an uneasy relationship with the burden of his fame. Ever since I made movies as a kid, the idea of having a camera was that it was the one place where you could exert control in a world of chaos. One of my favorite things in the movie is the way Jeffrey Wright deadpans about the Riddler, “This guy is hilarious.” But I wanted to explore Bruce and Batman’s humor, too.

WARNING: Don't bombard us with any hostile, Riddler-esque missives about ruining the movie. You should only read further if you've already seen Robert ...

He doesn't get a formal introduction, and neither does the audience, but the leering grin makes it pretty easy to guess who we've just met. The answer, of course, is “a friend.” And the Riddler has just made one. The Riddler's incarceration is all part of his plan, and he has unleashed countless acolytes on the city who have been radicalized online, Qanon-style, to further his destructive plot.