FILM · 2022 · USA
The Batman
- Directed by
- Matt Reeves
- Runtime
- 177 min
- Studio
- 6th & Idaho Motion Picture Company, Dylan Clark Productions, DC Films
565 archived facts 8 topics 1 source Last reviewed Nov 2026
In his second year of fighting crime, Batman uncovers corruption in Gotham City that connects to his own family while facing a serial killer known as the Riddler.
565 Interesting Facts About The Batman
Interesting Facts (152)
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Contains a major spoiler — show
Once the end credits finish rolling, a message states "goodbye," followed by the URL www.rataalada.com flashing across the screen, prompting moviegoers to visit the in-world website the Riddler uses to taunt Batman. The website was also used by Warner Bros. to promote the theatrical release, where fans could solve riddles about the movie. As of now, the site displays a banner stating that the domain has been seized by the Gotham City Police Department.
- #003
Robert Pattinson on his Batman at the beginning of the movie: "Bruce is obsessed in being Batman. He has no desire to be Bruce and he wants to just throw it away. He hasn't gotten over being the 10-year-old boy who, in his mind, let his parents die. For him, being Batman is like a strange kind of therapy. He thinks this is the way he can save himself, by living in this kind of Zen state as Batman, where it's just pure instinct and no emotional baggage. It feels like he has a death wish going out at night. I always get the impression that he wants to keep recreating the night when his parents died. In his mind, every single person he is fighting is the person who killed his parents."
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To allow Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson to communicate on set across the self-imposed COVID-19 barriers between them, both were outfitted with earpieces and microphones. Reeves said, "We were always directly connected, and it's weird, because we were physically distant. I could talk to him very low. I think we were in each other's head. That had a particular effect." According to Pattinson, there were times when Reeves' mic was accidentally left on while cameras were rolling; Pattinson said, "You could hear his little reactions. If it was a tense scene, you'd suddenly hear his breathing accelerate. Sometimes, it would be very, very distracting, but sometimes I actually quite enjoyed hearing his real-time reaction. I've never been so close to a director's perception of what I was doing before. It's a strangely intimate experience."
- #006
Robert Pattinson and Zoë Kravitz had been friends for about a decade before being cast in this film. Matt Reeves said that because of this, the two already had great chemistry and a natural connection right from the beginning of the shoot. Pattinson and Kravitz appeared very early on in Reeves' mind as he was writing the screenplay.
- #007
Contains a major spoiler — show
Three weeks after the film's release, Warner Bros. released a deleted scene online in which Batman visits the Joker at Arkham State Hospital. During the scene, Batman interrogates the Joker about who the Riddler's identity might be. The scene was well received, and many people wondered why it wasn't in the film. Director Matt Reeves stated that he deliberately left it out because the scene tells the viewer exactly what motivation the Riddler is acting on.
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- #011
Contains a major spoiler — show
The reveal that William Kenzie is an off-duty cop is hinted at the first time Batman sees him in the Iceberg Lounge: out of all the thugs attacking Batman, Kenzie is the only one to point his gun and warn him before firing (similar to how cops yell "freeze!"), whereas the twins fire without notice immediately after.
- #012
DC Comics was so impressed by Paul Dano's performance as The Riddler that it asked the actor to write a six-issue bimonthly series for its DC Black Label based on his version of the character, titled "Riddler: Year One." The comic told how Edward Nashton became The Riddler. This was Matt Reeves' fourth film to have a comic book tie-in, after Let Me In (2010), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) and War for the Planet of the Apes (2017).
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- #014
Contains a major spoiler — show
Director Matt Reeves on the Arkham scene at the end of the film: "I never was trying to say like, 'Hey, guess what, here's the Joker. Next movie!' The idea was more to say, 'Hey, look, if you think that trouble is going to go away in Gotham, you can forget it. It's already here. And it's already delicious.'".
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- #017
Contains a major spoiler — show
The film establishes Martha Wayne's maiden name as Martha Arkham, since the Arkham family contributed to the creation of Gotham City as well as the Arkham State Hospital. This is the first film to give more relevance to Martha Wayne instead of only Thomas Wayne.
- #018
When makeup artist Mike Marino presented his Penguin sculpture, Matt Reeves said, 'Oh my God, is this possible? Can you do this on him? Is this gonna move?' Marino replied, 'Don't worry, it will look super-real. He'll have full expression. We'll test it, and if it doesn't look good, we'll just throw it out the window and start over with something more subtle.' The initial test team consisted of Michael Fontaine, Crystal Jurado, Sasha Camacho, Claire Flewin, Jaime Leigh McIntosh and a wardrobe team for clothing. Sasha Camacho made the hairpiece, and Jaime Leigh McIntosh helped cut the piece to ensure it was the right length. Marino explained, "It took approximately four hours, and we were just playing around. Once we glued the makeup on, you could see Colin's expression. He was like, 'okay, this is cool.' Then he started doing all this stuff and using his voice, and by the end, he was in full character." With both the director's and the actor's approval, Warner Brothers and DC signed off on it immediately, and only minor tweaks were required after that point. "I got really lucky because the approval process is usually much longer. It was none of that, which was incredible," said Marino.
- #019
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- #021
Contains a major spoiler — show
Bruce uses high-tech contact lenses that allow him to record his actions as Batman. This is a concept actually introduced in Scott Snyder's New 52 Batman comics in The Court of Owls story, in which Bruce equips himself with a contact lens that lets him access the Batcomputer from any place in the world.
- #022
While some viewers regarded Catwoman's leaving home without her cell phone as a mistake on her part, it is a mark of her experience and sophistication as a second-story burglar. A professional thief would be aware that in significant cases, law enforcement agencies routinely request or subpoena positional data from all cell phones near a crime scene to see which users were in the vicinity. It shows not only who was there at what time, based on whose phones were pinging which towers and which Wi-Fi connections were active, it allows them to track all those phones' movements before and after as long as the phones remain active. By not carrying it on her person, Catwoman's cell phone's position could therefore be used to support her alibi, showing police that she was "home the whole night." Conversely, having it on her while she was in the mayor's residence would potentially give police strong proof that she was somewhere she had no business being, and for how long, and where she went afterwards. It would lead investigators right to her door. Criminals routinely park their cell phones in innocuous locales for just that purpose, and throw police off their scent.
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Director Matt Reeves on the Bruce Wayne persona: "He is not yet understanding even the asset that being Bruce Wayne could be another kind of mask. He's just not together enough yet to even understand how valuable that's gonna be. I was interested in the idea of him being at a stage where he couldn't bear the weight of the history of being part of the Waynes... he might be able to use that as a kind of mask or as a guise, but he can't figure any of that out yet."
- #028
Principal photography began on January 27, 2020 in London and was put on hold on March 13, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After a 5-month hiatus, shooting resumed in late August 2020. After just two days, filming was suspended again after Robert Pattinson tested positive for COVID-19. After Pattinson was cleared to return, shooting resumed on September 17, 2020 and finally wrapped on March 21, 2021 (14 months after principal photography began).
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Near the end, Falcone gains the scratch-mark scars on his right cheek that he has in the comics when Selina claws his face. The circumstances are a little different, though; in the comic she scratches him as she flees his home during an attempted robbery, but here she claws him because Falcone tried to strangle her to death.
- #031
The comic that influenced the tone of The Batman was "Batman: Year One". The influence on Selina and Batman's relationship was Klute (1971). The influences on the plot were Chinatown (1974) and All the President's Men (1976). The influence on Batman's psychology was the comic "Batman: Ego". Other influences included The French Connection (1971), Taxi Driver (1976), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Seven (1995), Mindhunter (the book) and the comics "Batman: Last Days", "Batman: The Long Halloween" and "Batman: Zero Year".
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Contains a major spoiler — show
After the first murder, the Riddler leaves a card addressed to Batman that reads, "From your secret friend." It might seem that the Riddler is mocking Batman, the police, or both, or foreshadowing something ominous. After Edward is captured, it is revealed that he truly sees Batman as a friend and ally who is helping him clean Gotham of its corruption.
- #034
In June 2000, Wizard Magazine published writer Jeph Loeb and artist Tim Sale's casting choices for a film adaptation of their comic book Batman: Dark Victory, the sequel to Batman: The Long Halloween. One of their choices was John Turturro as Alberto Falcone, and Turturro ended up playing Alberto's father Carmine in this film.
- #035
Contains a major spoiler — show
The diner in which the Riddler is captured appears to have been inspired by Edward Hopper's famous 1942 painting "Nighthawks". Much like the subject of the painting, the Riddler is seen sitting alone, stirring a cup of coffee. Of the piece, Hopper stated, "unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneliness of a large city." This mood is mirrored flawlessly in The Batman's Gotham: a bustling city of fluorescence and promise that continually fails to emerge from its bleak and isolating shackles.
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Riddler leaves a flash drive that Gordon plugs into his laptop; it hacks the computer and leaks pictures from Gordon's email to the press. At the end of the second act, he similarly tricks Batman and Gordon into placing Falcone at the exact spot where he is shot. The first event inspires Gordon to bring down Falcone by leaking vital, inadmissible evidence to the press again, since he now knows they trust him, giving the police a plausibly deniable reason to arrest Falcone. It also helps that Riddler killed several of the corrupt officials who would normally put the brakes on such a bust, which may have been part of the point of those murders.
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Riddler was said to be a forensic accountant at KTMG. A forensic accountant is trained to investigate and solve complicated financial cases, combining a depth of specialized expertise with a distinctive outsider perspective. They specialize in unraveling financial puzzles, assisting with fraud investigations, assessing internal controls and conducting proactive fraud risk assessments. KTMG appears to be inspired by the firm KPMG, one of the "Big Five" accounting firms in the United States.
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Arkham Asylum, a psychiatric correctional facility, was renamed Arkham State Hospital in the film. This is the second Batman-related movie to rename Arkham Asylum as Arkham State Hospital; the first was Joker (2019). In "Before The Batman: An Original Movie Novel," however, the facility is referred to as Arkham Asylum.
- #046
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The Penguin pieces were made of platinum silicone, mostly PlatSil Gel-25, in different levels of softness. The makeup consisted of a nose, cheeks and a neck that wrapped around to the back. Mike Marino said, "It was a collapsible mold, but I left the back open, so I could move it around and bring it in tighter if I needed to." He said a chin, an upper lip connected to the nose, and a brow piece completed the look. One of Marino's clever and innovative techniques was varying the density of the silicone in the nose area. "In the mold, we made a denser cartilage-like silicone in the center, and on the outside borders, it was totally soft. Once the Baldiez was sprayed in the mold, the thicker silicone was laid strategically in this area. Often, if the nose is soft as one material, it changes shape and stretches, and it doesn't look like a nose anymore. It just looks like this weird shape. So I varied that in certain areas." With these enhancements, the prosthetic piece moved naturally once glued on.
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- #052
Contains a major spoiler — show
Barry Keoghan said he had to spend six hours in the makeup chair. He also said he was concerned he would get a "Joker smile" for real, thinking the process would leave him with legitimate scarring on his face. "That took six hours to get into that, and it was like, 'Oh, man!'" Keoghan said of the experience. "I couldn't sit still for six hours. I really couldn't. And then I remember [one day] we were on five hours, and then someone came in and went, 'We're shutting production down. There's COVID.' I was like, 'Huh? Really? What? What happened?' There was this steel thing that went... God, that was like slicing in. I was like, 'I'm really going to be left with a scar here.'".
- #053
Batman's cowl, collar and emblem design in this film resemble the designs used in "Gotham By Gaslight," a 1989 one-off graphic novel written by Brian Augustyn with artwork by Mike Mignola, P. Craig Russell and David Hornung. Set in 1889, that story follows Batman searching Gotham for Jack the Ripper, who had left England for North America.
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Contains a major spoiler — show
The Riddler personally attacked and killed his first three victims, but he sends a bomb to Bruce instead. This is for the same reason he could not target Falcone directly: both Bruce and Falcone are described as recluses, meaning their public movements are unknown to the Riddler. Bruce spends most of his time in the Batcave without going to work, and Falcone hides in the Iceberg Lounge.
- #057
John Turturro said in many interviews that he partly based his performance as Carmine Falcone on a man from his old neighborhood whom his father warned him never to speak to. Apparently this mysterious man had a tendency to manipulate and seduce others, likely into carrying out illegal activities on his behalf. For Turturro, this helped shape Falcone into the manipulator and seducer he is in the final film.
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Batman's first scene was inspired by Matt Reeves questioning the practicality of being Batman. "When I was first sitting down to write, I was thinking about the challenge of the practicality of being Batman. The idea of how does he look for crime?" Reeves wanted to convey how Bruce walks the streets at night and doesn't wear his Batsuit because he would be immediately recognized. He chose to set the scene during Halloween, which was inspired by "The Long Halloween," and to show Bruce not wearing a mask on a night when everyone else was.
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At the film's opening night at the Moviehouse & Eatery by Cinepolis in Austin, Texas, a real bat was released in the theater and disrupted moviegoers. The incident was a prank by a mischievous moviegoer. Some moviegoers were annoyed and were refunded by the theater, while others stayed and watched the rest of the film with the bat still in the theater. The theater stated that security would check belongings to prevent such occurrences in the future.
- #074
The film features off-camera narration by Robert Pattinson's Bruce Wayne, who copes with the blurring of his two lives as Bruce Wayne and The Batman by writing down and reviewing his nightly actions in journals. This closely resembles Rorschach/Walter Kovacs, another DC Comics character from Alan Moore's Watchmen comic series, who narrates the original comics through his journal. Bruce's monotone tone and eloquent manner of narrating are also similar to Jackie Earle Haley's portrayal of Rorschach in Zack Snyder's Watchmen (2009) adaptation.
- #075
While that holds true for most of the film, by the end it is arguably no longer so. Before revealing that he believes himself and Batman to be brothers in arms, the Riddler says people will not forget or ignore him from that point on, a rather egotistical remark from someone who apparently only wants to expose the corrupt underbelly of Gotham. Later, when Batman rejects him, after his breakdown he spitefully taunts Batman that he cannot stop his plan and will be crushed by it if he tries, only to watch in rage as Batman, while not exactly stopping the plan, thwarts his scheme to assassinate the new Mayor and make things worse, saves as many people as he can, establishes himself as a hero to the people of Gotham rather than just another crazed vigilante, and overall completely steals the Riddler's thunder. If the Riddler had no motivation to prove himself superior to Batman before, he certainly does now. This also means the film ultimately turns out to be an origin story, just the Riddler's rather than Batman's.
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The film marks Robert Pattinson as the ninth Batman in a live-action movie. The previous eight were: Lewis Wilson in Batman (1943); Robert Lowery in Batman and Robin (1949); Adam West in Batman: The Movie (1966); Michael Keaton in Batman (1989), Batman Returns (1992) and The Flash (2023); Val Kilmer in Batman Forever (1995); George Clooney in Batman & Robin (1997); Christian Bale in Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012); and Ben Affleck in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Suicide Squad (2016) (uncredited), Justice League (2017), Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) and The Flash (2023).
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The Riddler's Saw-style murder methods recall the Batman: Arkham series, in which the character also used Jigsaw-like traps on his victims. The neck bomb used to kill Colson is especially similar to the bombs he used in Arkham City and Arkham Knight. His motive of exposing corrupt officials recalls his goals in Batman: Arkham Origins. His MO of terrorism while idolizing Batman (but not Bruce Wayne) and believing the Caped Crusader would approve of his methods also recalls Anarky from that game.
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Contains a major spoiler — show
The color red is synonymous with Bruce's vengeful and rather selfish agenda as Batman, but at the film's climax he lights a red flare to help the trapped civilians in the now-flooded Gotham stadium. He is no longer just a boogeyman waiting to strike in the dark. He is also a hero who brings light even in the darkest of times.
- #089
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Paul Dano suggested wrapping his head in cling wrap for the character of the Riddler, but according to Matt Reeves, after 3 or 4 takes of the first scene he took the wrap off and his face was "beet red." The director asked if he wanted to keep wearing the cling wrap, and Dano was committed to the choice.
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Composer Michael Giacchino wrote the suite "Funeral and Far Between" before filming began, and Matt Reeves listened to it right before Robert Pattinson's screen test: "Normally what happens is I show a very long cut of the movie way before it's done to Michael, and he starts writing suites. And this particular piece of music, I talked extensively to Michael about what I was doing, sharing some script pages, and he wrote this theme before we were shooting and actually had an orchestra record it. And he sent it to me the night before Rob did his screen test as Batman."
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In an interview with Esquire, director Matt Reeves explained that he wanted a standalone film and did not want to focus on things that had already been done. He said: "We've seen it [Batman's origin] so many times; it's been done too much. I knew we couldn't do that." That was when Reeves turned to the classics and comics for inspiration, and he found it in Batman: Year One. The tone was detective noir, just what he needed. Reeves then revealed a peculiar inspiration he included in the film: "Early on, when I was writing, I started listening to Nirvana, and there was something about 'Something in the Way,' which is in the first trailer and is part of the voice of that character." The director was also struck by Kurt Cobain's struggles and troubled life; it suddenly occurred to him that the young hero was quite similar to the singer, and he added: "Is this guy some kind of wayward, reckless drug addict? And the truth is that he is a kind of drug addict. His drug is his addiction to this drive for revenge. He's like a Batman Kurt Cobain." Reeves drew parallels between Cobain's addiction and Bruce Wayne's all-consuming desire for revenge. Although Bruce Wayne's demons are not fed by drugs, his obsession with revenge becomes an equally destructive force. This character insight helped bring more depth to Robert Pattinson's Batman, and Reeves explained: "I knew the reason people were excited was that they knew Rob's post-Twilight work. I knew the people who weren't excited were that way because they didn't know Rob's post-Twilight work." The director was excited and determined to cast the actor in the lead role; he believed in Pattinson's acting ability. If fans were not already convinced that his performance in the film erased all doubts, the director explained: "I'm very proud of this. I thought it was the best version of the story we could make to justify another Batman."
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Contains a major spoiler — show
Riddler and Batman are presented as parallels in many ways, and one of them is how they both use stealth. Batman dresses in black and uses darkness as a tool so he can go unseen, while the Riddler wears a costume you could buy at any army surplus store. Outside the costume he looks like an ordinary nerdy guy you wouldn't look twice at, which he also uses to his advantage.
- #099
Makeup designer Naomi Donne (known for Cruella and Spectre) headed the film's makeup department, but it was Mike Marino who took on the daunting task of the Penguin makeup. The two had worked together many times before, their professional relationship beginning on Synecdoche, New York, Marino's first job tackling age makeups, and from then on Donne and Marino made an effort to do projects together. Marino noted, "I wasn't in touch with Colin Farrell, but I did work with him 10 years ago." When Marino was told Farrell had been cast, his first thought was how little the actor looked like the Penguin; he wondered what Matt Reeves had in mind, but never doubted Farrell's ability to pull off whatever he and Reeves came up with. "I know what an incredible actor he is, and I know what he can offer. Colin is one of the most versatile actors out there. He's so talented and has this explosive quality."
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Bruce briefly taunts Falcone at the mayor's funeral by alluding to the gunshot Thomas Wayne helped him recover from, and in a bit of poetic irony Bruce ends up being the one who accidentally kills him. Little Bruce watched from the staircase above as his father worked, and this time Bruce does the work while the Riddler does the shooting, from above, thinking of himself as Batman's ideological "son." Carmine even dies with Bruce looking down on him from above as he bleeds out, just as in his vivid recollection of the past.
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Contains a major spoiler — show
Riddler's final plan to trigger a flood and blackout in Gotham by destroying the dam and cutting the city off from the world borrows from Batman: Zero Year, especially in his bogus justification of doing it as a call for Gothamites to improve the city on their own, when in reality it is a thinly veiled excuse to punish what he believes to be an uncaring, corrupt city. It also borrows from Bane and Talia Al Ghul's scheme in The Dark Knight Rises (2012), which first aims to punish the devious elites and leave Gotham in a destitute communist squalor isolated from the world, letting citizens grow increasingly desperate to survive, but ultimately intends to obliterate the city with a thermo-nuclear bomb for the express (yet dubious) purpose of purifying it. The difference is that Gotham, while devastated, is not left isolated; the National Guard actually comes to its aid, placing it under martial law and more or less enabling the city to function partially during a restoration effort, rather than remaining helpless under Edward's thumb or under threat of further destruction like from the remaining League of Shadows.
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Contains a major spoiler — show
In the opening sequence, the store robber (who robs a man but doesn't seem to hurt him), the graffiti artist and the hesitant thug all retreat, but the overconfident criminals predisposed to hurting people, who go right at The Batman, do not. Batman's violence isn't stopping the people already committing it; it is amplifying it by giving them an environment of terror and paranoia. Batman only realizes this at the end and decides to change it by becoming a beacon of hope for Gotham, showing them a chance for the future and creating real change, marking his turn away from his vengeance.
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Contains a major spoiler — show
The beginning of the film establishes that the Bat Signal is effectively another of Batman's scare tactics, making criminals paranoid by showing that he is aware of a crime and is now about to stop it, making it seem as though he could be anywhere. Naturally, the Riddler and his followers, who are all inspired in part by Batman's vigilantism, take a similar approach in the end, all dressing as the Riddler and making it seem as though he is everywhere.
- #120
Contains a major spoiler — show
Upon realizing that the Riddler is targeting "Bruce Wayne" for the "Sins of the Father," Bruce immediately tries to run back to Wayne Tower and warn Alfred that he is in danger, only for his call to be picked up instead by his housekeeper, who tells Bruce that Alfred was caught an hour earlier in a letter-bomb explosion meant for him. The same thing happens on a much grander scale at the climax, when Batman discovers the Riddler's final plan to bomb Gotham's sea wall and flood the city, only for the bombs to start going off the very moment he finds out.
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Contains a major spoiler — show
The Riddler's attack on the mayor at the beginning was originally filmed from his POV as he scans the mayoral suite through the windows and clearly glimpses the mayor playing with his son, yet despite this he has no problem staging his gruesome, elaborate and over-the-top murder scene and leaving the mayor's body to be discovered by the next person to enter the room. It is later confirmed by Gordon that the child was the first to find his father's body, which absolutely traumatizes him. This apathy towards the common people fuels the Riddler's final plan: to destroy Gotham by flooding it and eliminating the last remaining leading authority figure in the chaos so that the city will gradually tear itself to pieces, all out of a sincere belief that his hero Batman will join him in the slaughter.
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Contains a major spoiler — show
After Edward Nashton's arrest at the diner, there is a brief clip in which a police officer watches a news clip about Bella Real's election. The reporter covering the event is named Dan O'Neil, and Dennis O'Neil was a major writer and editor for DC Comics in the Modern timeline before Flashpoint, working primarily on Batman comic events such as 'Knightfall' and 'No Man's Land.'.
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The film is the seventh superhero film musically composed by Michael Giacchino. The first six are The Incredibles (2004), Doctor Strange (2016), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Incredibles 2 (2018), Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019) and Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), respectively. The film that follows this one is Thor: Love and Thunder (2022).
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Jeffrey Wright is the third actor to play both Batman and Jim Gordon, having played Batman in Batman: The Audio Adventures (2021). The first two are: Bruce Thomas, who played Batman in OnStar commercials (2001-02) and Gordon in Son of Batman (2014); and Ben McKenzie, who played Batman in Batman: Year One (2011) and Gordon in Gotham (2014).
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Colin Farrell (the Penguin) is the fifth actor to play a villain in both a DC and a Marvel film, having played Bullseye in Daredevil (2003). The first four are: Parker Posey, who played Kitty Kowalski in Superman Returns (2006) and Danica Talos in Blade: Trinity (2004); Michael Fassbender, who played Burke in Jonah Hex (2010) and Magneto in X-Men: First Class (2011), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) and X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019); Danny Huston, who played Erich Ludendorff in Wonder Woman (2017) and William Stryker in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009); and Ciarán Hinds, who played Steppenwolf in Justice League (2017) and Mephisto in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011).
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Contains a major spoiler — show
With this film, Barry Keoghan becomes the second actor from the cast of Eternals (2021) to appear in a Batman-related film. The first actor from that cast to appear in a Batman-related film is Brian Tyree Henry, who starred in Joker (2019). Henry and Keoghan played two of the Eternals (Phastos and Druig, respectively). Interestingly, both actors also portray characters connected to Arkham State Hospital: Henry played Carl, the Arkham State Hospital secretary who speaks to Arthur Fleck/Joker, while Keoghan played the Joker, an Arkham State Hospital patient.
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Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz and Colin Farrell have all appeared in the Harry Potter franchise. Robert Pattinson played Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), while Zoë Kravitz played Leta Lestrange and Colin Farrell played Percival Graves in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016), and Kravitz reprised Leta for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018).
The Batman (2022): Bruce Wayne / The BatmanImage: Wikimedia Commons · Greenway Productions, Public domain - #142
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This is the second Batman film released in March, after Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016). Overall, it is the fourth theatrical Batman film not released in the summer, after Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) (December), Batman v Superman (March) and The Lego Batman Movie (2017) (February).
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Production Story (355)
- #153
Before the film's release, it was announced in July 2020 that an HBO Max television series based on the Gotham City Police Department was in the works and would serve as a prequel to the film. The series was to be executive produced by Matt Reeves, Dylan Clark, Terence Winter, Daniel Pipski and Adam Kassan. However, problems began to arise over storyline issues and the notion that the protagonist is a corrupt cop. Winter eventually left the project due to creative differences and was replaced by Joe Barton. Still, the problems remained. In March 2022, Reeves announced that the series was no longer in development.
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This is the first version to directly address the black eye makeup under Batman's cowl. In previous films, the makeup disappeared when Bruce took off his mask. Matt Reeves said: "I liked the idea of [taking it off] and there's the sweating, the dripping, and all the theatricality of becoming this character."
- #160
Robert Pattinson's audition/screen test took place in May 2019 in Los Angeles while he was rehearsing for the filming of Tenet (2020). Pattinson had to lie to Christopher Nolan about it, but Nolan, who was no stranger to Batman and Warner Bros., immediately figured it out. Pattinson: "I said I had a family emergency. And as soon as I said it, he goes: 'You're doing the Batman audition, aren't you?'" When Pattinson was told he had won the role of Batman one day before the main photography of Tenet began, he was surprised that Nolan also knew and congratulated him, even though Pattinson had not yet told anyone.
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Matt Reeves stated that his version of the Riddler was partly inspired by the notorious Zodiac Killer, an unidentified serial killer who operated in Northern California in the late 1960s. Zodiac used ciphers in his notorious letters to the police, which led Reeves to call him a "real-life" Riddler. In the film, the Riddler begins his video by saying "This is the Riddler speaking," and Zodiac also began his letters with "This is the Zodiac speaking." Zodiac also killed his victims while wearing a mask with glasses over it and a leather suit, just like the Riddler wears.
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When the final title sequence ends, a message indicating "goodbye" flashes on the screen, followed by the URL www.rataalada.com, encouraging moviegoers to visit the in-world website the Riddler used to taunt Batman. The website was also used by Warner Bros. because it promoted the theatrical release, where fans could solve riddles related to the film. As of now, the site displays a banner stating that the domain has been seized by the Gotham City Police Department.
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At the beginning of the film, Robert Pattinson says about his Batman: "Bruce is obsessed with being Batman. He has no desire to be Bruce and wants to cast that aside. He can't get over being a 10-year-old boy who let his parents die. For him, being Batman is like a strange kind of therapy. He thinks he can save himself by living in this kind of Zen state where there's only pure instinct, like Batman, and no sentimentality at all. It feels to me as if he has a death wish when he goes out at night, as if he always wants to keep recreating the night his parents died, as if every person he fights was the one who killed his parents."
- #166
Robert Pattinson's Bruce Wayne is partly inspired by Kurt Cobain. Writer/director Matt Reeves was listening to Nirvana while writing the first act with Pattinson in mind. Reeves said, "That's when it occurred to me that instead of doing the playboy version of Bruce Wayne we've seen before, there's another version who suffers a great tragedy and becomes a recluse. Kurt Cobain had a relationship with fame; his goal wasn't to be famous. He loved music, but the idea of becoming famous through music was a double-edged sword for him. That actually reminded me of Rob Pattinson. I felt this rock star vibe suited him very well. After all, he became a pop culture icon at a very young age and had to carry that burden, and he had to free himself from that burden to become the actor he is today."
- #167
The last two punches in the train station scene, where the victim is already unconscious when Batman says "I'm vengeance!" were Robert Pattinson's idea, and he improvised them. Pattinson said, "I wanted to say it because the guy lost consciousness and entered his dreams. I wanted his future to be really, really damaged."
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Director Matt Reeves wrote the script with Robert Pattinson in mind; he did not even know whether Pattinson wanted to be in the film. After watching Pattinson's performance in Good Time (2017) and being captivated by it, Reeves began at a certain point to picture Pattinson in the role as he wrote. Pattinson was Reeves's first choice because he was "always the version of what I saw on the page. I think of Bruce Wayne as a reclusive rock star living in a decaying mansion. I have a side that sees Rob (Pattinson) that way, and I had no idea whether he would be interested in playing this role. But what if Rob doesn't want to play Batman? I thought it would be a disaster." Yet Reeves did not know this, and at the same time Pattinson had been focused on the role of Batman without even knowing the state of the project. In 2018, Pattinson and The Batman producer Dylan Clark had a general meeting about potential collaborations without a specific project in mind. Clark: "We're talking about 20 different things. Then Pattinson starts saying, 'So what's happening with Batman?'" Reeves finally met Pattinson eight months later, after he had finished the script. Pattinson still did not know that Reeves had written the role with him in mind: "I had to try to imagine what he had written, and I hadn't even read the script. I would come in with this notebook full of notes."
- #171
Robert Pattinson auditioned for The Batman using Val Kilmer's original Batsuit from Batman Forever (1995). However, because Pattinson's head did not fit into Kilmer's cowl, he wore the cowl George Clooney wore in Batman & Robin (1997). Strangely, former Batman Christian Bale also auditioned for Batman Begins (2005) using Val Kilmer's original Batsuit from Batman Forever (1995), but with Kilmer's cowl.
- #172
When asked whether he took anything from the set, Robert Pattinson explained that he repeatedly took the socks his character wore and Warner Bros. He noticed: "I took a lot of socks [from the set]… I was constantly talking to Warner Bros. They'd say, 'You know, it's fine to have a few, but you're taking them every day. How many socks do you need, because we've been shooting for a year?'"
- #173
The news reporter whom The Riddler mentions and who is accused of ordering Thomas Wayne's death becomes the killer known as "Hush" in the comics, Thomas Elliot, whose father Dr. Thomas Wayne could not save. In the film, while Elliot speaks of the hush money he refused from Thomas Wayne, the word "Hush" even appears over a picture of him, likely hinting that his son will emerge in the future to take revenge on Bruce for his father's sins.
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When it was decided that Ben Affleck would star and direct, the film's villain was to be Deathstroke, played by Joe Manganiello, and Arkham Asylum was to feature prominently in the script. Matt Reeves compared the original script Ben Affleck had prepared to a James Bond film and genuinely liked it. However, because he wanted to make a darker, detective-focused story and bring his own completely new version to life, he chose not to use it.
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The Batmobile in this film is a special muscle car Bruce built himself. This is influenced by the Batman (1966) series, in which a Lincoln Futura was converted into the Batmobile. Another influence was Neal Adams's "Batman" comics from the 1970s, in which the Batmobile was a fairly normal-looking car that Batman used for stealth.
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To allow Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson to communicate on set by overcoming the COVID-19 barriers they had set for themselves, both were fitted with earpieces and microphones. Reeves: "We were always directly connected, and it was strange because we were physically distant. I could speak to him very quietly. I think we were in each other's minds. It had a particular effect." According to Pattinson, there were times when Reeves's microphone was accidentally left on while the cameras were rolling. Pattinson: "You could hear his little reactions. If it was a tense scene, you'd suddenly hear his breathing speed up. Sometimes it was very distracting, but sometimes I really enjoyed hearing his real-time reaction. I had never been this close to a director's perception of what I was doing. A strangely intimate experience."
- #179
When the Riddler is caught by police in a corner diner, law enforcement finds several ID cards on him. One of them says it refers to the New Earth version of The Riddler, whose name Edward Nashton would eventually change to Edward Nygma. Another ID card reads "Patrick Parker," an alias long believed to have been used in the comics, though no one can even name a single issue in which it happened. Alex Jaffe, who works on the DC Comics website, tried to trace where the name came from, and only then did the truth come out. It turned out that in November 2013 an unknown prankster edited the Riddler's Wikipedia page and added "Patrick Parker" to his aliases. Without adding a citation. People then began treating that Wikipedia page (or each other) as fact, assuming that if it was written on the internet it had to be true. And yet it never was.
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Robert Pattinson and Zoë Kravitz had been friends for about ten years before taking roles in this film. Matt Reeves therefore said the pair had great chemistry and a natural bond from the very start of shooting. Pattinson and Kravitz came up very early in Reeves's mind while he was writing the script.
- #183
Three weeks after the film's release, Warner Bros. posted a deleted scene online in which Batman visits the Joker at Arkham State Hospital. During the scene, Batman questions the Joker about who The Riddler's identity might be. The scene was well received, and many people wondered why it was not in the film. Director Matt Reeves stated that he deliberately left it out because the scene tells the audience exactly what motivation The Riddler is acting on.
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Colin Farrell wears makeup and a thick suit for the Penguin role. His facial prosthetics consisted of six pieces. To make sure there were no visible seams, crew members held harsh flashlights up to his face before approving him to go to set. When production locked down because of the pandemic, Farrell actually started working out, and the costume team had to resize his thick suit. They even came to his home once to say: "Colin, you've gotta stop working out."
- #187
At the film's climax, the struggling Batman injects himself with a green drug that enables him to get back on his feet, but he briefly goes berserk. It looks very much like Bane's Venom. In the comics, Bruce briefly became addicted to the drug before Bane was introduced so that he could better protect people.
- #188
Director Matt Reeves was "devastated" when Robert Pattinson was cast for a role in Tenet (2020), because he thought it meant Pattinson would not want to play Batman. Reeves believed that since Pattinson had only been doing art films at that point, if he was going to make a blockbuster it would only be once. Reeves said: "I was devastated. I wrote this script thinking of Rob in my mind. I wanted him to be my Batman. I thought, 'Okay, that's it. He won't want to be Batman' while making a blockbuster with one of Batman's best filmmakers." Fortunately for Reeves, that was not the case, and Pattinson was in fact willing to portray the Batman character.
- #189
The VFX team behind the chase scene revealed that the explosions behind the Penguin were supposed to be a much shorter shot. Director Matt Reeves liked Colin Farrell's improvisations ("I got you, I got you!") so much that he asked them to add smaller explosions so he could give time to the entire shot.
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Although Barry Keoghan is simply credited as "Unseen Arkham Prisoner," it is clear that he is the Joker. Director Matt Reeves explained that in The Batman universe, Keoghan's Joker has congenital scars and that his permanent smile is the result of a congenital disease, so he cannot stop smiling. Batman had met the Joker in his first two years, and although he has not yet given himself the name Joker, they have a shared past. The concealed makeup was based on Conrad Veidt's appearance in The Man Who Laughs (1928). Veidt's role in that film was the main factor in writers/creators Bill Finger, Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson creating the Joker.
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William Kenzie's revelation that he is an off-duty police officer is hinted at when Batman first sees him at the Iceberg Lounge - among all the thugs who attack Batman, Kenzie is the only one who aims his gun and warns him before firing (similar to police shouting "freeze!"), whereas the twins fire immediately afterward without warning.
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Composer Michael Giacchino wrote the main theme song 'The Batman' before the film went into production and while Matt Reeves was still writing the script. Reeves first listened to it in his car with producer Dylan Clark before going on stage to conduct Robert Pattinson's screen test (the red-light test released in January 2020).
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DC Comics, greatly impressed by Paul Dano's performance as the Riddler, asked the actor to write a six-issue bimonthly series for DC Black Label based on a version of the character titled "Riddler: Year One." The comic told the story of how Edward Nashton became the Riddler. This was Matt Reeves's fourth comic book-related film after Let Me In (2010), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) and War for the Planet of the Apes (2017).
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When Matt Reeves met with Colin Farrell regarding possible casting, he was excited that Farrell was much heavier. Farrell had gained weight for his previous project The North Water (2021). Reeves asked him to keep the weight, but Farrell refused the request due to health issues. In the role of the Penguin, Farrell wore a thick suit over the 'The North Water' weight he had not yet lost.
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Director Matt Reeves on the Arkham scene at the end of the film: "I never tried to say, 'Hey, guess what happened, here's the Joker. Next movie!' The idea was more to say: 'Hey, look, if you think the trouble in Gotham is going to go away, you can forget it. It's already here. And it's already very delicious."
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When the title character first appeared in Detective Comics, he was billed as "*The* Batman." The article "the" was also used in the 1940s serials. The use of the word "the" had fallen out of favor in the 1960s. However, it was revived in the 1970s for the character's serious reimagining by Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams.
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When Bruce follows Selina to her home, the shots inside her apartment look almost as if they were taken directly from the "Year One" comic book. The fact that he looks at her young roommate/potential romantic partner and that the two are implied to be escorts is also taken from the comics.
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When makeup artist Mike Marino presented the Penguin sculpture, Matt Reeves said, "Oh my God, is this possible? Can you do this on him? Will this move?" Marino said, "Don't worry, it will look super realistic. He will have a full range of expression. We'll test it, and if it doesn't look good, we'll throw it out the window and start over with something more subtle." The first test team consisted of Michael Fontaine, Crystal Jurado, Sasha Camacho, Claire Flewin, Jaime Leigh McIntosh and a wardrobe team for the costume. Sasha Camacho made the hair piece, and Jaime Leigh McIntosh helped cut the piece to make sure it was the right length. Marino explained: "It took about four hours of playing with it, and we were just playing. Once the makeup was applied, you could see Colin's expression. He said, 'Okay, this is great.' Then he started doing all of it and using his voice, and finally brought out his full character." With the approval of both the director and the actor, Warner Brothers and DC immediately signed off on the project. After this point, only minor adjustments needed to be made. "I got really lucky because the approval process is usually much longer. It was none of that, which was incredible," Marino said.
- #220
Matt Reeves said the final scene in the prison cell between Batman and the Riddler took "70 or 80 takes" over more than two days. He explained: "Paul loves to do a lot of takes, just like me… Paul loves to explore. He's obsessive in that regard. There were all these moments where he was tickled by something as the Riddler and then flew into a rage. You could never know where that transition between take and take would land. I would sit there with my headphones on, trying to suppress my laughter because he would always do something surprising. Paul would ask me: 'Was that crazy? Was that too much?' I would say: 'No, that's great. Let's do one more."
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Robert Pattinson stated that he spent his breaks on the film set composing ambient electronic music on a laptop using an Akai/Ableton MPC controller with headphones while wearing the Batsuit, because it took too long to get out of the costume and he was not allowed to leave the set in the suit.
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In most adaptations Gordon is completely honest and morally pure, but this film emphasizes the moral and legal ambiguity of working with a violent vigilante. Many police officers rightly say that Batman compromises evidence, which could lead to many problems in Gotham's already corrupt courts. Gordon helps Batman abduct and interrogate suspects, conduct unauthorized surveillance and leak vital evidence that the police could not legally use to the press, which gives Gordon plausible deniability to act on it. Under normal circumstances all of this would be very bad, but the film implies that this is the only way to solve the corruption in the system.
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Years ago, while working with Philip Seymour Hoffman, makeup artist Mike Marino had convinced the actor to shave his head to make applying a wig easier. Hoffman immediately agreed so he wouldn't have to sit in the makeup chair any longer each day. For this film, Marino convinced Colin Farrell to do the same. "Colin shaved half of his head, like St. Francis, you know?" said Marino. "He had to walk around the city with a hat all the time because he looked like a monk, but it worked because I had Sasha make a wig hair piece to imitate where his hairline started. It was just a top piece, and the sides were brushed into his own hair."
- #229
When filming resumed after months of quarantine due to COVID-19 and Robert Pattinson tested positive only a day after returning to the set, director Matt Reeves was unwilling to risk catching COVID himself and transformed himself on set into "a burrito," wearing a mask, gloves, a head covering and a snorkel mask. Reeves said, "You couldn't see my face, and for the rest of the film the actors saw me like that. I was this ridiculous, hermetically sealed creature. It was so absurd."
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This is the first solo Batman film shot digitally. Matt Reeves confirmed that The Batman's 1970s cinematic look was achieved by running the finished digital image through film and then scanning it back. An IP (interpositive film) and a bleach bypass were also used in the process. This is the same technique Greig Fraser applied for his other film Dune: Part One (2021), because he did not want the image to be too thin and smooth.
- #232
Nirvana's "Something in the Way," which was never released as a single and was never a consistent part of the band's live setlist, entered the setlist for the first time in August 2020 after appearing in the first trailer for The Batman. In the week after it was released in theaters in March 2022, the song saw an increase of more than 1,200% in Spotify streams and rose to No. 2 in the US.
- #233
After Matt Reeves officially replaced Ben Affleck as director in February 2017, Warner Bros. announced that Affleck would no longer reprise the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman. On May 16, 2019, Variety reported that Robert Pattinson was in talks to take on the role of Batman. Toward the end of the month, it was reported that he had officially signed on to play Bruce Wayne/Batman and that he was director Matt Reeves's first choice. Reeves confirmed the casting two days later by posting a GIF on his Twitter account featuring Pattinson's character from Good Time (2017) along with three bat emojis. The film's connections to the DC Extended Universe film series were removed from the script, and Matt Reeves wrote his own story.
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While coming up with ideas for the first crime scene at the mayor's house, Robert Pattinson told director Matt Reeves that he wanted his movements as Batman to be like a ghost or ghost-like. Reeves said: "He moved like a ghost in that scene, and he moves like a ghost in much of the movie."
- #237
Matt Reeves discusses the influence of the Batman comic "Ego" on the portrayal of Batman in this film: "I wanted to get into the character's mindset, and for me I wanted to think about his psychology. I think one of the coolest deep dives was Darwyn Cooke's Ego. He confronts the beast that is Batman, and there is a kind of duality. There is a lot in the story about Bruce Wayne confronting the shadow side of himself that is Batman, and about Batman confronting his shadow side. There is a psychological unity in which Batman is broken and does things for reasons he knows and does not yet know."
- #238
There was a great deal of discussion about Robert Pattinson and his physicality in the lead role. Before the film's release, Pattinson made off-the-cuff jokes in interviews about how he had not trained physically for the role. Some people genuinely believed he was not right for the film and were dismissive of the actor. It was not confirmed until the film's release that the actor had trained physically for the role.
- #239
Bruce uses high-tech contact lenses that allow him to record his actions as Batman. This is actually a concept introduced in Scott Snyder's New 52 Batman comic in the Court of Owls story, in which Bruce equips himself with a contact lens that allows him to access the Batcomputer from anywhere in the world.
- #240
Viewers unfamiliar with British pop culture may be puzzled by Alfred's reference to having worked at the "circus" before starting to work for the Waynes. In this context, "circus" refers to Cambridge Circus in Soho, London, and for further context, this is also where the fictional headquarters of MI6 is located in John le Carré's spy novels. Therefore, Alfred was probably working in the spy trade as a field agent, which is why he taught Bruce his fighting skills.
- #241
Some viewers may see Catwoman leaving home without her cell phone as a mistake on her part, but it is a sign of her experience and knowledge as a second-story burglar. A professional thief knows that in major cases, law enforcement routinely requests or subpoenas location data from all cell phones near the scene to see which users were in the vicinity. Not only does this show who was there and when, which towers their phones pinged, and which Wi-Fi connections were active, but it also allows them to trace all phone movements before and after as long as the phones remain active. Therefore, the location of Catwoman's cell phone, because she did not carry it on her, can be used to support her alibi and show the police that she was "home the whole night." Conversely, having her cell phone on her while at the Mayor's house could potentially give the police strong evidence that she was somewhere she had no business being, how long she stayed, and where she went afterward. This would have led investigators directly to her door. Criminals routinely park their cell phones in harmless places for precisely this purpose and don't stop the police from following them.
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Director Matt Reeves on the Bruce Wayne persona: "He doesn't even appreciate that being Bruce Wayne could be another kind of mask. He's not together enough yet to understand how valuable that could be. I was interested in the idea that he's at a stage where he can't carry the weight of his history of being a part of the Waynes… he could use it as a kind of mask or disguise, but he hasn't figured any of that out yet."
- #249
Principal photography began on January 27, 2020, in London and was suspended on March 13, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After a five-month hiatus, filming resumed in late August 2020. Just two days later, filming was halted again after Robert Pattinson tested positive for COVID-19. After Pattinson was allowed to return, filming resumed on September 17, 2020, and finally wrapped on March 21, 2021 (14 months after principal photography began).
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Toward the end, when Selina scratches his face, Falcone gets the scratch marks on his right cheek as in the comics. However, the circumstances are slightly different; in the comic, she scratches him while escaping from his house during a burglary attempt, but here the reason she claws him is that Falcone tried to strangle her to death.
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The initial concept art established that the Penguin should look like Colin Farrell. His hair and wardrobe looks ranged from shabby to a dapper 1920s gangster. As a nod to the Penguin's distinctive nose, the design included a prosthetic nose that could be bent due to injuries. However, director Matt Reeves, who met Farrell after he had gained weight for a role, was inspired by his broader frame. When Farrell refused to maintain the weight due to health issues, Reeves decided to give him padding to achieve that look.
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The comic book that influenced The Batman's tone was "Batman: Year One." The influence on Selina and Batman's relationship was Klute (1971). The inspirations for the plot were Chinatown (1974) and All the President's Men (1976). The influence on Batman's psychology was the comic book "Batman: Ego." Other influences included The French Connection (1971), Taxi Driver (1976), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Seven (1995), Mindhunter (the book), and the comic books "Batman: Last Days," "Batman: The Long Halloween," and "Batman: Zero Year."
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After the first murder, the Riddler leaves a card addressed to Batman that reads: "From your secret friend." The Riddler may appear to be mocking Batman, the police, or both, or to be the herald of something sinister. After Edward is caught, it turns out that he saw Batman as a friend and ally who would truly help him cleanse Gotham of its corruption.
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In June 2000, Wizard Magazine published casting choices for a film adaptation of the comic book Batman: Dark Victory, the sequel to Batman: The Long Halloween, by writer Jeph Loeb and artist Tim Sale. One of its choices was John Turturro as Alberto Falcone, and in this film Turturro played Alberto's father, Carmine.
- #262
In a recording in which Thomas Wayne announces his investment in the renewal fund, the line "I believe in Gotham," the first line spoken in The Long Halloween, is seen as a reference to the first line spoken in The Godfather. It also echoes Harvey's "I believe in Harvey Dent" from his District Attorney campaign in The Dark Knight; that phrase had previously been used in The Long Halloween.
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The diner where the Riddler is caught appears to have been inspired by Edward Hopper's famous 1942 painting "Nighthawks." The Riddler is seen stirring a cup of coffee while sitting alone, much like the subject of the painting. Hopper said of the piece: "unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneliness of a large city." This mood is perfectly reflected in the Gotham of The Batman: a bustling city full of fluorescence and promises, constantly failing to break free of its bleak and isolating shackles.
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In September 2021, it was announced that a spin-off series based on Colin Farrell's Penguin was in development for HBO Max, which was later ordered as a limited series. Matt Reeves and Dylan Clark are the executive producers of the series. In December 2021, Farrell reprised his role and also served as an executive producer. The miniseries focuses on Oswald Cobblepot/Penguin's rise in the underworld.
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The Riddler leaves a flash drive that he plugs into Gordon's laptop. It hacks the computer and leaks the images in Gordon's email to the press. At the end of the second act, he similarly tricks Batman and Gordon into placing Falcone in exactly the right spot to be shot. The first incident inspires Gordon to bring down Falcone by leaking vital, unacceptable evidence to the press again, since he now knows they trust him, which gives the police a reasonably deniable reason to arrest Falcone. It also helped the Riddler kill several of the corrupt officers who would normally have curbed such a raid. This may be part of the purpose of those murders.
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The address of Wayne Towers, "139 Kane Street," is a reference to the time when Batman was first created and a nod to co-creator Bob Kane. It is also a reference to Martha Wayne's maiden name in the comics, since in that version she originally came from the Kane family, and this was also connected to Batwoman, who in the comics is Martha's niece and Bruce's cousin, Kate Kane.
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Cinematographer Greig Fraser considered this one of the hardest films he had worked on to date, especially because of the problems posed by the Batsuit. Since the suit was full of so many details and he was after a bleak, dark look, he had to take care that there were no shadows that would shade the suit.
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Early in the film, Alfred informs Bruce that some accountants are coming to discuss certain matters regarding the financial state of the family fortune, but Bruce ignores it. The audience tends to ignore it too, since it seems like nothing more than a mythology joke aimed at other times when Bruce Wayne faced money problems or dealt with over-inquisitive accountants digging into the Wayne Foundation's finances. On a second look, it is almost certain that the accountants were going to tell Alfred and Bruce that the Wayne Renewal Fund — a billion-dollar investment meant to last for years — had been depleted far faster than it should have been… Pointing to the money pot having been corruptly siphoned off.
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Although Batman's rigid, motionless stance has the effect of making him cold and frightening, it also serves a practical purpose for his investigations. Every morning Bruce reviews footage from his contact-lens cameras, and it is easier for him to scan the footage for clues with as little movement as possible.
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Bruce's insistence on being Batman above all else leads him to ignore the meeting with his accountants early in the film. Given that Riddler discovered the corruption in the Renewal Fund because he worked as an accountant, had Bruce attended the meeting, he would likely have been given all the answers — or at least a very large clue.
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Riddler was said to be a Forensic Accountant at KTMG. A forensic accountant is trained to investigate and solve complex financial cases, combining depth of expertise with a different outside perspective. They specialize in solving financial puzzles, assisting fraud investigations, evaluating internal controls and conducting proactive fraud risk assessments. KTMG appears to have been inspired by the firm KPMG, one of the "Big Five" accounting firms in the United States.
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Arkham Asylum, a psychiatric penitentiary, had its name changed to Arkham State Hospital in the film. This is the second Batman-related film to change Arkham Asylum's name to Arkham State Hospital. The first was Joker (2019). However, in "Before The Batman: An Original Movie Novel," the facility is referred to as Arkham Asylum.
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The Penguin pieces were made of platinum silicone, mostly PlatSil Gel-25 at different levels of softness. The makeup consisted of a nose, cheeks and a neck extending toward the back. Mike Marino said, "It was a collapsible mold, but I left the back open, so I could move it around and bring it in tighter if I needed to." He said what completed the look was the chin, the nose-connected upper lip and the brow piece. One of Marino's clever and innovative techniques was to vary the density of the silicone in the nose area. "In the mold, we made a denser, cartilage-like silicone in the middle, and it was completely soft at the outer edges. When Baldiez was sprayed into the mold, the thicker silicone was strategically placed in that area. If the nose is mostly soft as a single material, the shape shifts and stretches and no longer looks like a nose. It just looks like this strange shape. So I varied it in certain areas." When these refinements were applied, the prosthetic piece moved naturally once it was glued on.
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The name of the grocery store that is robbed at the beginning of the film is 'Good Times Groceries'. This is a nod to the film Good Time (2017), which led director Matt Reeves to write the script with Robert Pattinson in mind after seeing his performance. The robber dressed as Drop Head also wears a red jacket similar to the red jacket Pattinson's character wore while robbing a bank in Good Time (2017).
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The initial reaction to Robert Pattinson's casting as Batman was largely negative because of his association with the widely mocked Twilight series. This was the third case of fan backlash against Batman casting, after Michael Keaton in Batman (1989) and Ben Affleck in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016). Coincidentally, the reaction to Pattinson's casting as Edward Cullen in Twilight was also negative, as most people remembered him as the "clean-cut, good boy" Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005).
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Eiza González, Ana de Armas, Hannah John-Kamen, Nathalie Emmanuel, Alicia Vikander and Ella Balinska screen-tested for Selina Kyle/Catwoman. Zazie Beetz also auditioned for the role but was turned down due to a scheduling conflict with Atlanta (2016). Beetz had previously played Sophie Dumond in Joker (2019).
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At the beginning of the film, before the Riddler kills him, Mayor Mitchell is watching an election debate, and one of the things raised is the Renewal Fund and how Reál opposes it. At first glance, it seems he does not want to ruin Thomas Wayne's legacy by backing away from the last thing he did before dying. After learning more about him, it becomes clear that the reason he does not want to shut down the fund is that he is stealing money from it. Moreover, he is seen watching a replay of the debate with a pained expression on his face.
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Zoë Kravitz is the third African-American actress to play Catwoman in live action, after Eartha Kitt in Batman (1966) and Halle Berry in Catwoman (2004), but the latter was not Selina Kyle, the film was not set in Gotham City and it was generally not part of the DC Cinematic Universe or the traditional DC Universe, so it would also be correct to say that Kravitz is the second.
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The film portrays the Riddler as a serial killer borrowed from Batman: Earth One Volume 2 and Batman: The Telltale Series. In keeping with this theme, he is shown with a coffee cup whose cream forms a question mark, similar to a panel in the comic in which steam rising from a coffee cup in his hideout dramatically takes such a shape.
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At the Mayor's funeral, Bruce sees several protesters outside angrily shouting the Riddler's "No More Lies" slogan and holding signs with the Ark Symbol, showing that the ultimate threat the Riddler poses is not the man himself, but rather the effect he has on others who sympathize with his cause after he publicized his targets' sins and corruption as justification for his actions.
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Barry Keoghan said he had to spend six hours in the makeup chair. He also said he was worried he would actually get a "Joker smile," thinking the process would leave a legitimate scar on his face. "That took six hours to get into that, and it was like, 'Oh, man!'" Keoghan said of the experience. "I couldn't sit still for six hours. I really couldn't. Then I remember [one day] we were working for five hours and then someone came in and said, 'We're shutting down production. There's COVID.' And I was like, 'Huh? Really? What? What happened?' There was this steel thing that was… God, it was like it was slicing. I said, 'This is really going to leave a scar.'"
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The cowl, collar and emblem design of Batman's suit in this film resemble the designs used in the 1989 one-shot comic "Gotham By Gaslight," written by Brian Augustyn with art by Mike Mignola, P. Craig Russell and David Hornung. Set in 1889, the story has Batman hunting Jack the Ripper in Gotham after he travels from England to North America.
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The Riddler personally attacked and killed his first three victims. Instead, however, he sends Bruce a bomb. This is the same reason he cannot target Falcone directly. Both he and Bruce are described as recluses, meaning their public movements are unknown to the Riddler. Bruce spends most of his time in the Batcave without going to work, and Falcone hides out in the Iceberg Lounge.
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The journal Bruce keeps throughout the film was inspired by Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, in which Jekyll keeps a record of his experiments. Matt Reeves also found online the diary of a rookie police officer working the night shift, which inspired some of Bruce's writing. The director said: "He was sort of addicted to this activity… Being Batman is really just him trying to make sense of his life, and even though that sounds very heroic in a way, it is actually personally driven. It is really about him being driven to make sense of his life and what happened to him in the only way he knows how, which is to try to channel all his energy into revenge."
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In many interviews, John Turturro stated that he based his performance as Carmine Falcone partly on a man from his old neighborhood whom his father warned him never to talk to. Apparently this mysterious man had a tendency to manipulate and seduce others (possibly into carrying out illegal activities on his behalf). For Turturro, this helped Falcone be the manipulator and seducer he is in the final film.
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Batman's first scene was inspired by Matt Reeves questioning the practicality of being Batman. "When I first sat down to write, I was thinking about the difficulty of the practicality of being Batman. The idea of how he searches for crime?" Reeves wanted to show how Bruce walks the streets at night and does not wear the Batsuit because he would be recognized immediately. He chose to set the scene during Halloween, inspired by "The Long Halloween," and to show that Bruce does not wear a mask on a night when everyone is wearing one.
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The uncertainty over whether Falcone, Maroni or a random mugger who "pulled the trigger too fast" was responsible for the Waynes' deaths perfectly reflects the true spirit behind the tragedy of their murders. It is not the fact that these privileged upper-class citizens became crime victims just like anyone else; it is the endless mystery of what actually happened that night and why. No matter how deep Bruce digs, as Alfred did for twenty years, he may never achieve that closure and peace, which drives him to make sure this never happens to anyone else as Batman. The Wayne killer remaining unidentified is quite fortunate. Bruce's sudden interest in his parents' deaths when Falcone and Alfred raise potential suspects heavily implies he is considering a particular kind of revenge aimed at the culprit, which would violate his moral code, and after Alfred emphasizes that no one knows who killed the Waynes, Selina indirectly learns in the scene that her mother was personally killed by Carmine Falcone, which naturally sends her on a determined quest for revenge to assassinate Falcone. Selina shows what would happen if Batman knew who the killer was. In every possible scenario of who killed the Waynes, Falcone is somehow involved. In Alfred's story, Falcone had the Waynes killed because he potentially spilled the beans on him despite the blackmail. In Falcone's story, Maroni had the Waynes killed because he feared Thomas Wayne would end up in Falcone's pocket. In the Random Mugger theory, the mugger was born from a corrupt system in Gotham that Falcone helped create. In a sense, Falcone is literally the Waynes' killer whether or not he gave the order, because he embodies all of Gotham's corruption that led to the murders, even plundering their fortune, which would have helped the poor and needy shortly after the Waynes' deaths. Although never stated, the Riddler's exposure of the Wayne family's dirty laundry presented Bruce with a metaphorical riddle he could never solve no matter how hard he tried. The uncertainty behind their murders and Falcone's death left behind an eternal question about what the ultimate cause behind their murders was, thus giving the Riddler a metaphorical 'victory' over Batman by creating a puzzle he cannot solve, just as other incarnations of the character are obsessed with solving it - and fittingly, he will never know it because of his distorted perception of both Bruce and Batman.
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Before the film was released, in July 2020 it was announced that an HBO Max television series about the Gotham City Police Department was in production and would serve as a prequel to the film. The series was to be executive produced by Matt Reeves, Dylan Clark, Terence Winter, Daniel Pipski and Adam Kassan. However, problems began to arise due to story issues and the idea of the protagonist being a corrupt cop. Winter eventually left the project due to creative differences and was replaced by Joe Barton. Still, the problems continued. In March 2022, Reeves announced that the series would no longer be developed.
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The overall story very loosely follows The Long Halloween, which begins on Halloween and in which most of the victims are associates related to Falcone (in the comic they are his blood relatives, but here they are just dirty politicians and police officers on the payroll), and goes as far as the murder of Falcone himself. However, apart from the Halloween beginning, there are no holiday motifs afterward.
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Matt Reeves says it was important for him not to write an origin story, "but to do a story about Batman, not one of the rogue's gallery characters after he becomes Batman, but Batman in his early days at a point where he hasn't fully learned how to be Batman." By the end, "Batman himself, not Bruce becoming Batman but being Batman, has an awakening and needs to change."
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Matt Reeves explained why the Joker scene is at the end of the film and why they put it back after first removing it. "A lot of people ask me, 'Is this a setup for another film?' and honestly it isn't really… It changed the trajectory of the final scene. When Selina tells him she knows this place will never change and that I have to try, the idea emerged that trouble is resurfacing. In this power vacuum, people are already scheming. When you take the scene out, it didn't create the same effect, and the idea that he could go with her seemed more logical, and you thought, so why does he stay? So it was actually a crucial point from the end of the film to the end of Riddler's broadcast. Time will tell what we do with these characters in the future, but this was never meant to be like a hidden teaser scene, 'Oh guess who we'll use in the next film.'
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Almost all of Colin Farrell's face except his forehead is covered in prosthetics. Makeup artist Mike Marino didn't need to age his forehead because Farrell's natural skin could work for the character. "He's in his early forties and Oswald wasn't very old, so I didn't need that. I ended the piece right here at the brow ridge and then blended it into his own forehead."
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On the film's opening night at the Moviehouse & Eatery by Cinepolis in Austin, Texas, a real bat premiered in the theater and disturbed moviegoers. The incident was a prank by a mischievous moviegoer. Some moviegoers were upset and were refunded by the theater, while others stayed and watched the rest of the film while the bat was still in the theater. The theater stated that security would check belongings in the future to prevent such incidents.
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The film features off-camera narration by Robert Pattinson's Bruce Wayne, writing and reviewing his nightly activities in journals to cope with the blurring of his two separate lives as Bruce Wayne and The Batman. This closely resembles Rorschach/Walter Kovacs, another DC Comics character from Alan Moore's Watchmen comic series, which narrates the original comics through his journal. Bruce's narration style and monotone tone also resemble Jackie Earle Haley's portrayal of Rorschach in Zack Snyder's Watchmen (2009) adaptation.
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Matt Reeves knew there would be many long dialogue scenes in Batman's scenes during filming, so he and Robert Pattinson chose not to disguise Batman's voice. "Even the tone of his voice, how loud his voice needed to be. I knew I didn't want to make a Batman with the growl we've seen before. Because I knew that in this version, if you're going to do a detective story, there would be a lot of dialogue scenes with Batman. Actually, when you look at all the films, Bruce can have a lot of long dialogue scenes, but Batman has dialogue scenes, but they're controlled. This is literally the necessity of solving this." The crime would require him to have long dialogue scenes in the suit, and some were very emotional. If he were growling, we couldn't connect with him emotionally. So we did real research to figure out how this would work."
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Matt Reeves wanted to hint at who killed Bruce's parents but did not want to answer the question. "The comics of course have the Joe Chill version, but there's also a version I like; they will never know exactly who killed their mother and father, and this mystery will haunt him forever, and nothing will get us to the bottom of this event. And I thought this was an opportunity to present some potential possibilities, and that his father's own corruption could be one of the factors that led to their murders, and this was something that never occurred to Bruce."
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While this is true for most of the film, it is indisputable that in the end he is not quite so. Before revealing that he believes he and Batman are brothers in arms, the Riddler says that people will not forget or ignore him after this point; seemingly a rather selfish comment from someone who only wanted to expose Gotham's corrupt underbelly. Later, when Batman rejects him, after his breakdown he taunts Batman, telling him he cannot stop his plan and that if he tries, he will be crushed by him - only in anger, even if he does not exactly stop Batman's plan, he watches him foil his plan to assassinate the new Mayor and make things worse, save as many people as possible, be accepted as a hero for the people of Gotham rather than another crazed outlaw, and in general steal all the power. The Riddler's thunder. If the Riddler did not previously have the motivation to prove he is superior to Batman, now he certainly does… This also means that this film is ultimately an origin story - it is just this Riddler's origin story, not Batman's.
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The ending is also taken from Batman: No Man's Land: a disaster (an earthquake in the comics, the bombing of a sea wall in the film) causes a crisis and martial law in Gotham, opening the city (even further) to crime and implicitly giving the Penguin an opportunity to expand his criminal enterprise.
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The arena set was the only set surrounded by blue screen, but to make the backgrounds more realistic, Matt Reeves and his team used photographs of the O2 arena and encouraged the VFX team to embrace the imperfections of the specific lenses they used in the film to fill in the digital backgrounds.
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The idea for the film's ending was for Bruce to realize that what he did as Batman inspired some of the violence in the city. "I wanted the idea of spreading the message of revenge to the city to have an effect. He has now realized that in some way he too is implicated in this event and in everything happening in the city, that everything happening here is largely connected to the message he put out about revenge, and that this needs to change and he needs to do more." Matt Reeves said.
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Just like in Batman: The Telltale Series, Thomas and Martha Wayne have some dirty dealings that the villain tries to exploit, and Bruce is targeted because of Sins of Our Fathers. However, it turns out that this Thomas is a good man who made a reckless choice to protect his family, and unlike Telltale's Thomas, who drove Esther Cobblepot insane and committed her to Arkham for his own land, he did not want the renewal fund to be used by corrupt officials and gangsters. Some scenes are also quite reminiscent of the Telltale Series: Falcone's strangely friendly conversation with Bruce while playing billiards stands out. In the first season, Bruce goes to see Falcone in the hospital to learn more about his father's past with him and confronts Alfred about not telling him. In the film, Alfred is in the hospital bed instead. Finally, in both stories, Falcone is unexpectedly killed by the main villain, and although Bruce witnesses it, he cannot stop it. Even the Riddler's design and MO seem to have taken some elements from the main villain of the first season of the Telltale Series: a radicalized terrorist who hates Gotham City (especially the wealthy elite and especially Thomas Wayne), recruits other disaffected people into his crusade, wears a grimy mask, and makes video announcements to the city with an electronically altered voice? Sounds quite familiar.
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During the funeral, Bruce notices several people who could be the Riddler, including a random angry man whose daughter died. He is not the Riddler. He is a Riddler. He also recognizes Bruce with a smile, and at the climax reveals with a very similar smile on his face that he was inspired by Batman. Shortly after that funeral moment, Bruce saves the deceased Mayor's child from an attack by the Riddler, a child he clearly empathizes with. At the climax, he stops the man in question and then decides to become a symbol of hope and protection. He starts by saving the exact same child.
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The film marks Robert Pattinson becoming the ninth Batman in a live-action film. The previous eight were: * Lewis Wilson in Batman (1943) * Robert Lowery in Batman and Robin (1949) * Adam West in Batman: The Movie (1966) * Michael Keaton in Batman (1989), Batman Returns (1992) and The Flash (2023) * Val Kilmer in Batman Forever (1995) * George Clooney in Batman & Robin (1997) * Christian Bale in Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012) * Ben Affleck in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Suicide Squad (2016) (unlisted in the credits), Justice League (2017), Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) and The Flash (2023).
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Matt Reeves says Batman comes very close to killing in the final fight scene. "He wants to believe he won't kill, but at the same time he gets so close throughout this scene that in many ways he recklessly skirts the edge. And even part of that is luck, how close he comes to committing murder. And here I think if Gordon hadn't come and stopped him, he absolutely would have killed this man. That's how out of control he is, and Gordon kind of snaps him out of it. He's actually in a state right now. It just happened on pure instinct. It's like the comic 'Ego'." Said the director.
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In the Freeze-Frame Bonus, the Riddler is livestreaming one of his murders, and you can see that some people are leaving comments cheering him on because they think he is going after the right people. This not only implies that the Riddler sees his killing spree as a righteous crusade against corruption, but also reveals that he has fans; this fact becomes very important at the climax when some of them show up to help him carry out his final grand plan. Additionally, one of the comments says the Riddler is a much better outlaw than "that goth poser," implying that some people see Batman and the Riddler as cut from the same cloth — apparently including the Riddler himself.
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It is not dwelled upon, but it is frequently mentioned that Batman has been operating for two years. A blink-and-you-miss-it comment in a news report suggests that the anniversary of the Wayne murders occurs at almost the same time as Mayor Mitchell's murder. The clear implication is that Batman went into action on the anniversary of his parents' murder.
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The film is the first Batman theatrical movie since Adam West's time to feature Selina Kyle/Catwoman as a character interested in Bruce Wayne/Batman as the main character, but without her learning that Bruce Wayne and Batman are the same person. In fact, she never interacts with Bruce when he is not wearing the Batman costume. Additionally, Catwoman's previous cinematic appearances (Batman Returns (1992) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012)) had Selina discover in a major action scene that Batman and Bruce are the same person.
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Drawing on "The Long Halloween," Matt Reeves began thinking about serial killer stories and someone who leaves clues behind about crimes, which led him to choose the Riddler as the villain who leaves clues and ciphers for Batman in his film. He also drew inspiration from the Zodiac Killer and read "Mindhunter" to develop the story's serial killer aspect.
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Makeup artist Mike Marino and director Matt Reeves initially talked for hours on the phone about films and the inspiration for The Penguin. Because Reeves wanted the character of Oswald to have a vibe similar to John Cazale's 'Fredo,' The Godfather (1972) frequently came up in their conversations. Marino said, "Reeves wanted Penguin to have a little bit of a Fredo feel." "Fredo is literally a loser. He always tries but never tries hard enough. Even though he's in a successful family, they can't give him any responsibility." "Oswald is also someone with ties to gangsters but he's inept. I thought John Cazale's face had the qualities that made the character work that way." When Marino began sculpting, he aimed to add the 'Fredo' resemblance to the face. He also referenced other gangster influences such as Capone and Scarface. Reeves initially hoped Farrell would keep the extra weight he had gained for The North Water (2021). However, Farrell had a different plan. Marino recalled, "He told me he was unhealthy and wanted to get rid of all the weight. There was no way he was going to keep it." As a result, Marino knew he had to improve the appearance of his entire body. While Naomi Donne channeled Kurt Cobain to create a ghostly look for Robert Pattinson's Batman, Marino was researching mob bosses and bird beaks on Google. "I looked at pictures of penguins. I looked at bird beaks — parrots, eagles — and there are really great photos of birds with broken, chipped and injured beaks." "There was an interesting photo of a penguin with really slanted eyebrows, and it was all black and white feathers. I mimicked that shape in the design of the eyebrows." Careful viewers will notice that in extreme profile, Farrell's eyebrow mimics the shape of a beak. Marino also added white hair to the eyebrows. "It's a black and white contrast. You can barely see it but it's there. All of it came together to help create a character." "One of the things Stan Winston was always about was bringing a character to life." Mike continued: "This isn't makeup; this is a character. So I really had that in my head and I'm always striving for it." Although it was shot in the United Kingdom, the tests were done at Warner Bros. Studios in Los Angeles. When Marino unveiled his sculpture, the producers had the chance to see the full design for the first time. Marino made a sculpture from Farrell's actual cast and decorated it a bit with a bow tie and a monocle for effect. "I sent it to Matt and at first he said, 'What am I looking at? Is this like a reference? What is this?' 'No, this is Colin,' I said," he laughed.
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However, some inspiration may have been drawn from one of the many Batman video games, particularly the Telltale Games series about Batman, with its intense focus on Batman's evolution from a violent vigilante into a hero; Alfred keeping secrets from Bruce about the Wayne Family's various connections to the Falcone Crime Family; Batman's exceptional detective skills; his relationship with Selina/Catwoman; and the Penguin being a main character referred to as Oz (although in the Batman Telltale Games Oswald Cobblepot is a former childhood friend of Bruce's with a normal physique who lost his family fortune through bad investments and turned to an increasingly criminal life, in The Batman he is a senior member of the Falcone family).
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When Batman confronts Riddler in Arkham, he hides in the dark. This is because he is nervous about how Riddler knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman. When Eddie begins eerily saying Bruce's name, it visibly unsettles him. Once Batman realizes he does not know his secret identity, he approaches him and starts taunting him, now completely certain that his secret is safe and relieved.
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Riddler's Saw-style murder methods recall the Batman: Arkham series, in which the character uses Jigsaw-like traps on his victims. The neck bomb used to kill Colson is particularly similar to the bombs he uses in Arkham City and Arkham Knight. His reason for exposing corrupt officials recalls his targets in Batman: Arkham Origins. His terrorism modus operandi, while idolizing Batman (but not Bruce Wayne) and believing he would approve of the Caped Crusader's methods, also recalls Anarky in that game.
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Lady Gaga was at one point considered for the role of Catwoman/Selina Kyle in this film because she had lobbied heavily for a role in The Dark Knight Rises (2012), but she was not taken seriously as an actress until she appeared in A Star Is Born (2018). She would later play Harley Quinn in the sequel to 'Joker'.
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The color red is synonymous with Bruce's vengeful and rather selfish agenda as Batman, but at the film's climax, he lights a red flare to help civilians stranded in the flooded Gotham stadium. He is no longer just a bogeyman waiting to strike in the dark. He is also a hero who lights up even the darkest moments.
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Paul Dano suggested wrapping his head in plastic wrap for the Riddler character, but according to Matt Reeves, he took the wrap off after 3 or 4 takes of the first scene and his face turned "beet red". The director asked whether he wanted to keep wearing the plastic wrap, and Dano was committed to that choice.
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Composer Michael Giacchino wrote the "Funeral and Far Between" suite before shooting began, and Matt Reeves listened to it just before Robert Pattinson's screen test: "Normally, I show Michael a very long cut of the film long before it's made, and he starts writing suites. And this particular piece of music, I talked extensively with Michael about what I was doing, shared some script pages, and he wrote this theme before we started shooting and actually had it recorded by an orchestra. And he sent it to me. The night before Rob did the screen test as Batman."
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In an interview with Esquire, director Matt Reeves explained that he wanted a standalone film and did not want to focus on things that had been done before. He said: "We've seen this [Batman's origin] so many times; it's been done so much. I knew we couldn't do that." This was when Reeves turned to the classics and the comics for inspiration, and he found it in Batman: Year One. The tone was like detective noir, exactly what he needed. Reeves later explained that he had an unusual source of inspiration that he incorporated into the film: "Early on, while writing, I started listening to Nirvana, and there was something about 'Something in the Way' that ended up in the first trailer and became part of that character's voice." The director was also influenced by Kurt Cobain's struggles and troubled life; he suddenly realized that the young hero resembled the singer quite a bit and added: "This guy?" a kind of rebel, reckless, drug addict? And the truth is he is a kind of drug addict. His drug is his addiction to this urge for revenge. He's a Batman who looks like Kurt Cobain." Reeves drew parallels between Cobain's addiction and Bruce Wayne's consuming desire for revenge. Although Bruce Wayne's demons are not fed by drugs, his obsession with revenge becomes an equally destructive force. This character insight helped give Robert Pattinson's Batman more depth, as Reeves explained: "I knew that the reason people were excited was that they knew Rob's post-Twilight work. I knew that the people who weren't excited were the ones who didn't know Rob's post-Twilight work." The director was excited and determined about casting the actor in the lead role; he believed in Pattinson's acting ability. If fans were not already convinced that his performance in the film removed all doubts, the director explained: "I'm very proud of it. I thought it was the best version of the story we could make to justify another Batman."
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Edward Nashton references High and Low (1963) when he talks about how angry he is that the media covers the privileged orphan Bruce Wayne but does not give space to underprivileged orphans. John Turturro specifically asked Matt Reeves about this, and Reeves confirmed the reference. There is also a The Batman Adventure Comic featuring the Riddler and Kurosawa.
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The Riddler closely resembles the Joker in The Dark Knight (2008). Both are disguised and forensically untraceable mad terrorists who broadcast their crimes, use "cheap" tools, have a relationship with Batman, and gnaw at the rotten heart of Gotham City. The biggest difference is that the Joker sees Batman as a rival, while the Riddler sees him as an inspiration (and later an enemy). And more importantly, the Joker ended up alone. People helped him only out of pressure, self-interest or delusion. The Riddler, by contrast, inspires fans to take up his mission just as he was inspired by Batman.
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The Riddler and Batman are presented as parallels to each other in many ways, and one aspect is how the two use concealment. Batman dresses in black and uses darkness as a tool to remain unseen. The Riddler, meanwhile, wears a costume you could buy at any army surplus store. Outside the costume, he looks like an ordinary nerd you wouldn't look at twice, and he uses that to his advantage.
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Makeup designer Naomi Donne (known for Cruella and Spectre) was the head of the film's makeup department, but the daunting task of the Penguin makeup was taken on by Mike Marino. He and Donne had worked together many times before. Their professional relationship began on Synecdoche, New York, which was Marino's first job dealing with age makeup. From that moment on, Donne and Marino made efforts to do projects together. Marino noted: "I wasn't in touch with Colin Farrell, but I did work with him 10 years ago." When Marino was informed that Farrell would be cast, his first thought was how little the actor resembled the Penguin. He wondered what Matt Reeves had in mind, but he never doubted Farrell's ability to pull off whatever he and Reeves came up with. "I know what an incredible actor he is and I know what he can offer. Colin is one of the most versatile actors out there. He's so talented and has such an explosive quality."
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Michael Giacchino's Batman leitmotif shares many parallels with past Batman scores; it evokes elements similar to Danny Elfman's theme for Batman (1989) and Shirley Walker's theme for Batman: The Animated Series (1992), and also includes Batman's "na na na na na na na na Batman!" horns (1966) for the A-Bat-in-the-Rafters arrangement.
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At the mayor's funeral, Bruce briefly taunts Falcone by mentioning the gunshot from which Thomas Wayne helped him recover. In a bit of poetic irony, Bruce becomes the one who accidentally kills him. Young Bruce watched from the stairs above while his father worked, and this time Bruce was doing the job, and the Riddler was also shooting from above, thinking of himself as Batman's ideological "last." Carmine, while Bruce looked down at him as he bled out, just as in his vivid memories of the past.
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Despite the burglar and vandal being afraid of the Bat-Signal and Joker's thugs not being afraid, there is also a symbolism in the fact that Batman specifically targets the Joker. He does not go after the vandal making a political statement (even if destructive) or the probably poor vagrant holding a drink out of desperation; he goes after those who set out to target and harm innocent people for their own sadistic pleasure. Thus it symbolizes that although Batman's actions have adverse effects, his intention is still good and he at least targets the 'right' targets; he just needs to find a better and more productive way of doing it.
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The Riddler's final plan to destroy the dam to cut Gotham off from the world, triggering a flood and blackout in Gotham, is borrowed from Batman: Zero Year, particularly in the way he does it as a false pretext of a call to Gothamites to heal the city themselves, when in reality it is a thinly veiled excuse to punish what he believes to be a careless, corrupt city. This is also quoted from Bane and Talia Al Ghul's plan in The Dark Knight Rises (2012), which first aims to punish the sinister elites and leave Gotham isolated from the world in a poor communist squalor, allowing citizens to become increasingly desperate about survival, but ultimately to destroy the city with a thermo-nuclear bomb for an overt (but dubious) purpose. The difference is that although Gotham is devastated, it is not left alone; instead, the National Guard actually comes to their aid, places it under martial law, and allows the city to function more or less partially during restoration efforts, rather than being left helpless under Edward's control or facing the threat of further destruction like the remnants of the League of Shadows.
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The scene where Gil Colson tells Selina about the rat at the club had to be rewritten and worked on. Peter Sarsgaard said he didn't feel it was working in rehearsal, and Matt Reeves said he realized he was right on the day of shooting. So he stopped the scene, reworked it, and they came back the next day and shot it differently, and that is the scene in the film.
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Jeffrey Wright explained that he and Matt Reeves bonded over their shared love of Batman (1966), saying: "For me, it was my first dive into the Batman universe. Matt and I agree that it wasn't camp for us, it was deadly serious for an 8-year-old. It was deadly serious with bells and whistles and this side of James Bond and the most tricked-out heroic technology. If you look back at it in context, man, it was like Batman like everything. Pastel tones hardening Let's go back to the original Bob Kane/Bill Finger thing. It was my early and much-appreciated introduction to Gotham."
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In the opening sequence, the store robber (who robs a man but seems not to harm him), the graffiti artist and the hesitant thug back off, but criminals who are prone to harming people, overconfident and heading directly for The Batman do not back off. Batman's violence does not stop the people already carrying out that violence. It reinforces it by giving them an atmosphere of terror and paranoia. Batman only realizes this at the end and decides to change it, becoming a beacon of hope for Gotham, showing them a chance for the future and creating real change, signaling his move away from revenge.
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Nicholas Hoult, Armie Hammer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson were competing for the role of Batman before Robert Pattinson was hired. Hammer was cast as Batman in George Miller's cancelled Justice League: Mortal in 2007 and would have been 22 when it was planned for release in summer 2009, which would have made him the youngest actor ever to play Batman. He was also the second-youngest actor considered for Batman after Henry Cavill, who auditioned for Batman Begins (2005) at age 20 but lost the role to Christian Bale.
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Jeffrey Wright spoke to Men's Health and reflected on what it was like to shoot the Batman film in 2020. He explained: "You have to be fluid and find your way. I mean, in that interrogation scene I couldn't remember my lines. I stumbled through that scene on every take because I had been in my hotel room 10 days earlier. I was going to go back to London. It was the middle of the pandemic. It was my third quarantine. And in the end I couldn't leave. For 10 days in my hotel room." Wright's stay in a vast, almost empty hotel contributed to the surreal atmosphere. Based on his description, he likened it to the Overlook Hotel from one of Stephen King's most famous works: "My head was in such a strange place. We were in a hotel for 200 people but there were only two other people staying there; it was like I was living in the hotel from The Shining. When I finally started work I was all over the place. So I was received with tolerance and we finally got it done. But it was a scenario I had never experienced before. So yeah, I had to do it. I took an ice bath."
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After Superman, it is the 11th DC film to be nominated for an Oscar: The Mad Scientist (1941), Superman (1978), Batman (1989), Batman Returns (1992), Batman Forever (1995), Batman Begins (2005), Superman Returns (2006), The Dark Knight (2008), Suicide Squad (2016) and Joker (2019). Of these 11, only Batman, The Dark Knight, Suicide Squad and Joker won. Road to Perdition (2002) and A History of Violence (2005), based on comics published under DC's Paradox Press imprint, were also nominated, and Road to Perdition won.
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In one of the Riddler's videos, he strongly emphasizes the "HUSH" money that Thomas Wayne allegedly paid. If you combine this with his appearance and his vendetta against Thomas Wayne, you can start to see some pieces of Thomas Elliot there. Also, the reporter who tries to expose the Waynes is named Edward Elliot.
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When the Riddler kidnaps Gil Colson, he hides inside his car parked just outside the Iceberg Lounge, the home of many fraudsters and corrupt officials he targets as part of his struggle, showing that, like Batman, he is not afraid of the city's criminal element and is willing to take risky actions against them to defeat them. This is connected to the fact that the hideout from which he later broadcasts his viral messages is located on the street across from the lounge, with the Riddler camping out in front of the Mob's door to be in a prime position to collect incriminating photos of his clients and to execute Falcone after Batman 'brings him to light'.
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During the murder at the beginning of the film, the Riddler takes great care to retrieve the bloody murder weapon he used to crush the Mayor's head, but its exact shape is unclear from the blurry camera angle. At first this seems to be because he is trying not to leave traceable evidence, but in his final letter to Batman at the film's climax, he leaves the murder weapon at his home. Bruce returns to the apartment when the Riddler, even while locked up in Arkham, accidentally reveals that his final plan is still in effect and is surprised that Batman never figured it out, since the Riddler left him all the clues he needed. Officer Martinez tells Batman that the murder weapon is a carpet tucker, and Batman uses this tool to lift the apartment carpet, which reveals the Riddler's plan to flood the city and eliminate the last "corrupt" element in the city's leadership: Mayor-Elect Bella Reál.
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When the Riddler finally makes contact with Batman through a phone taped to Gil Colson's hand, he excitedly tells him that he has been trying to reach him and that he is "part of (his plans)," and says that only Batman will understand what he means when he asks for further explanation. Initially this seems to imply that the Riddler knows that Bruce Wayne is Batman; it reveals the Horrible Truth about how the Wayne family's Renewal fund financed crime in Gotham without Bruce's oversight of his company's finances after he attempted to kill Bruce with a letter bomb, holding Bruce responsible for his family's sins and marking him as another target to be eliminated to expose corruption in Gotham. However, it later turns out that the Riddler is completely unaware of Bruce's secret identity and mistakenly sends mixed messages to people he thinks are two different men. Instead, what the Riddler meant was that his plans required Batman to expose Carmine Falcone as the Rat who provided the valuable information needed for the Maroni drug bust and to take him outside the heavily defended Iceberg Lounge while arresting him, where the Riddler expected to shoot him.
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There are several references to John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) in the film. For example: * At the beginning of the film, the Riddler takes a deep breath while watching the Mitchell Family in Halloween. He breathes the way Michael Myers, the villain of the Halloween series, does when (Myers) stalks his victims in Halloween (1978). * The scene where the Riddler ambushes and takes D. A. hostage. Gil Coulson in Coulson's car mirrors the scene in Halloween (1978) where Michael Myers ambushes and kills Annie Brackett in her car. * In the scene where Batman and Gordon investigate the old Wayne Manor/Gotham Orphanage, a high and frightening musical note is heard when a figure runs down the corridor. The note resembles various eerie notes in Carpenter's Halloween (1978) score.
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During the filming of The Batman, the world was in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. In fact, it was one of the only films in production at that time. Filming continued for a while, but when Robert Pattinson's Covid test came back positive, the production shut down for several months. The crew dispersed to their homes, and Colin Farrell returned to Los Angeles. With little to occupy him, Farrell jumped on a treadmill and an exercise bike and quickly lost 30 kilos. As makeup artist Mike Marino recalled, "I reached out and said, 'Dude, what are you doing?' He said, 'I can't carry this weight.' He had already lost weight, but he still had kilos he wanted to lose. He said, 'I can't stop this. I'm stuck here. I have to do something.' He was exercising quite rigorously. So I flew to his house with the piece to try it out." After Farrell lost weight, Marino thought the makeup now looked like a deflated penguin. The neck and the suit overlapped by nearly ten centimeters at the back. Stressed but determined, Marino told the production team he needed to redo everything. "I recreated it at his house. I went back to my studio. I stuck the makeup onto a plaster cast. Then I replicated it side by side. I measured, and we redid everything. We went to London to fit it on him and it worked beautifully, but now [his body] also needed to be bigger." "We had to add back all the weight he had lost. It was a bit stressful, but you can't tell the difference in the resculpt. Everything, every line, every curve, etc. I was very careful with measuring." In the end, Marino had to copy the pieces and remake the molds before returning to London to resume filming. Claire Flewin made some adjustments to the suit, and Jacqueline Durran also made minor stitching adjustments. The suit stayed the same, but there were fine tunings. Marino claims Farrell is a true professional when it comes to prosthetics. Although Marino has had the privilege of working with many actors over the years, he said of Farrell: "Honestly, I've never seen anyone do what he does with this makeup. He and Eddie Murphy are the best-made-up people I've ever seen. He would stand in front of the mirror and do things, make expressions, and see what worked for him. When he laughs and opens his mouth wide, it doesn't look strange; it really looks alive." Reeves's passion for makeup effects and Farrell's willingness to try something radical and contrary to his character created a perfect collaboration. Marino said: "Matt had worked with some prosthetics in the past. So he knows everything about makeup effects. He knows Stan. He knows Rick Baker. He knows about everyone. I don't think he'd ever worked on this subject this much, but I think he was confident enough and used it as best he could."
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To achieve the flawless look of the eye makeup, makeup artists used a blend of three different types of black makeup (matte, glossy and semi-wet) around Robert Pattinson's eyes. This ensured that the transition between the mask's material and the skin was invisible under the film's high-contrast lighting.
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During filming, Robert Pattinson wore a hidden earpiece inside the cowl. Director Matt Reeves often played the film's score, and also played loud static noise in certain scenes to create a sense of inner chaos and social anxiety in Pattinson, helping the actor capture Bruce Wayne's detached and uneasy demeanor.
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The film's opening establishes that the Bat Signal is another of Batman's intimidation tactics; by showing criminals that he is aware of a crime and is now about to stop it, it makes them paranoid and makes him seem as if he could be everywhere. Naturally, in a way, the Riddler and his followers, inspired by Batman's vigilance, ultimately adopt a similar approach, all dressing like the Riddler and appearing as if he is everywhere.
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Bruce, realizing that the Riddler has targeted Bruce Wayne for "the father's sins," immediately tries to run back to Wayne Tower and warns Alfred that he is in danger, but instead his call is answered by the butler, who tells Bruce that Alfred was caught an hour earlier in a letter bomb explosion meant for him. The same thing happens on a much larger scale at the climax, where Batman discovers the Riddler's final plan to bomb Gotham's sea wall and flood the city, but the bombs begin to explode the moment he learns of it.
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The song heard in the background during Bruce Wayne's visit to Carmine Falcone, roughly 1 hour and 43 seconds in, is "I Have But One Heart" (1945). This version is sung by Al Martino, who performed the song as the character Johnny Fontane in the opening wedding scene of The Godfather (1972).
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Zoë Kravitz is the tenth actress to play Catwoman in a live-action film or TV series, after Julie Newmar, Lee Meriwether, Eartha Kitt, Michelle Pfeiffer, Casey Easlick, Halle Berry, Anne Hathaway, Camren Bicondova and Lili Simmons. This makes Catwoman the second most frequently portrayed comic book villain after Lex Luthor, with eleven portrayals. The Joker is almost tied for second, as Barry Keoghan is the ninth actor to play him, following Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, Roger Stoneburner, Heath Ledger, Jared Leto, Cameron Monaghan, Joaquin Phoenix and Nathan Dashwood.
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Initially, the Riddler's attack on the mayor was filmed from a POV shot in which he scans the mayor's apartment through the windows and clearly sees him playing with his son, but despite this, he has no problem staging the gruesome, detailed and exaggerated murder scene and leaving the mayor's body to be discovered by the next person who enters the room. It is later confirmed by Gordon that the child was the first to find his father's body, which absolutely traumatized him. This indifference toward ordinary people fuels the Riddler's final plan: to destroy Gotham by flooding it and to eliminate the last prominent authority figure left in the chaos, so that the city slowly tears itself apart, all stemming from a sincere belief that his hero, Batman, will join him in the slaughter.
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Thirteen visual effects companies provided the visual effects for this film. They are Scanline VFX, The Third Floor, Inc., Weta Digital, Industrial Light & Magic, Crafty Apes VFX, Atomic Arts, Territory Studio, Static Chair Productions, Halon Entertainment, Stereo D, Clear Angle Studios, Lidar Lounge and Barnstorm VFX.
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Michael Giacchino is the 10th Oscar winner to score a DC film, after the following: * Nelson Riddle - Batman: The Movie (1966) * John Williams - Superman (1978) * Ken Thorne - Superman II (1980) and Superman III (1983) * Jerry Goldsmith - Supergirl (1984) * Elliot Goldenthal - Batman Forever (1995) and Batman & Robin (1997) * Hans Zimmer - The Dark Knight trilogy (2005-12), Man of Steel (2013), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) and Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) * John Ottman - Superman Returns (2006) * Steven Price - Suicide Squad (2016) * Hildur Guðnadóttir - Joker (2019) and Joker: Folie à Deux (2024) (won an Oscar for the first film).
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The lyrics of "Something in the Way" literally foreshadow the Riddler's plan: "Underneath the bridge, Tarp has sprung a leak." The "Hooded Gunman," whom Batman finally defeats with the help of a green liquid injection and who calls himself "Vengeance," was played by an actor who also appeared as a Joker thug / bounty hunter in The Dark Knight (2008) and who shares the same birthday as Kurt Cobain, who inspired some aspects of this film.
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Falcone wears incredibly dark sunglasses even at night. He can see without them (or rather, he has to see after Selina attacks him for the plot to continue), which largely implies one of two things: they are part of his image, or he has major vision problems. Given how he has proven himself through corrupt cooperation with the police and the district attorney, this makes sense: the Don more than compensates for the process of building his image. One of the clues the Riddler gives to District Attorney Gil, who created Falcone, is that "justice is blind," which also reflects how his possible vision problems are supported by the corrupt form of justice in Gotham.
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After Edward Nashton's arrest at the diner, there is a short clip of a police officer watching a news segment about Bella Real's election. There is a news item describing the event by someone named Dan O'Neil, and Dennis O'Neil was a major writer and editor at DC Comics in the pre-Flashpoint Modern timeline, working primarily on Batman comic events such as 'Knightfall' and 'No Man's Land'.
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The film is the seventh superhero film musically scored by Michael Giacchino. The first six films are, in order, The Incredibles (2004), Doctor Strange (2016), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Incredibles 2 (2018), Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) and Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). The film that followed this one is Thor: Love and Thunder (2022).
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Colin Farrell had previously played the secondary villain Bullseye in Daredevil (2003). Ben Affleck, who played the character Matt Murdock/Daredevil in the previous film, is Robert Pattinson's direct predecessor in the role of Batman. In this film, Farrell once again plays the secondary villain Penguin in Pattinson's Batman.
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The graffiti artist was simply a vandal whose crime harmed no one. This probably serves as a deliberate harbinger that Batman's fearsome presence harms the city as well as benefiting it. In addition, the fact that the building they defaced is the Gotham Bank implies grievances against the inequalities and injustices maintained by the city's wealthy, and shows that Batman strikes fear into criminals but initially does not investigate the broader causes of the crime wave in Gotham. Moreover, he initially identifies himself with revenge, which is reactive, responding to wrongs committed by others; his learning to use his skills to bring hope to Gotham shows that Batman becomes more proactive in helping and inspiring the city as a whole rather than just targeting individual criminals. It should also be noted that they throw burning Molotov cocktails at the bank, which implies that they go somewhat beyond vandalism; despite their potentially justified anger, anyone inside or near the bank could object to the "isn't harming anyone" part if the bank were to catch fire.
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Jeffrey Wright is the third actor to have played both Batman and Jim Gordon, having played Batman in Batman: The Audio Adventures (2021). The first two: * Bruce Thomas - Batman in OnStar commercials (2001-02), Gordon in Son of Batman (2014) * Ben McKenzie - Batman in Batman: Year One (2011), Gordon in Gotham (2014).
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The Nirvana song "Something in the Way" has a symbolism that is not apparent until late in the film. What blocks the way until the Riddler blows it up is Gotham's sea wall, and it is the only thing preventing the city from being flooded. The lyrics also mention a "leaking" tarpaulin and animals being trapped and becoming the narrator's pets; this foreshadows the reactions of the panicking people stranded by the flood and Batman's sense of responsibility to look after them. It is also a harbinger of Bruce revealing at the climax that his cautiousness, driven by the need for revenge against criminals, sent the wrong message to the people of Gotham, and that he is "on the way" to becoming the hero the city needs to truly make a difference.
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The Riddler's finale, which causes Gotham to be flooded, has two metaphorical meanings. It "washes away" Gotham's corruption and gives it a chance at rebirth (otherwise known as renewal) through destruction. The irony is that he sees it as a destructive act, and while it is, it is also an act that lays the groundwork for Batman's change of heart and the city's rebuilding of itself. He was very much hoisted by his own petard.
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Colin Farrell (Penguin) is the fifth actor to play a villain in both a DC and a Marvel film, having played Bullseye in Daredevil (2003). The first four: * Parker Posey - Kitty Kowalski in Superman Returns (2006), Danica Talos in Blade: Trinity (2004) * Michael Fassbender - Burke in Jonah Hex (2010), Magneto in X-Men: First Class (2011), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) and X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019) * Danny Huston - Erich Ludendorff in Wonder Woman (2017), William Stryker in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) * Ciarán Hinds - Steppenwolf in Justice League (2017), Mephisto in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011).
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With this film, Barry Keoghan becomes the second actor from the cast of Eternals (2021) to appear in a Batman-related film. The first actor among them to appear in a Batman-related film is Brian Tyree Henry. Henry appeared in Joker (2019). Henry and Keoghan played two of the Eternals (Phastos and Druig, respectively). Moreover, interestingly, both actors play characters connected to Arkham State Hospital. Henry played Carl, the Arkham State Hospital secretary who talks with Arthur Fleck/Joker. Keoghan played the Joker, a patient at Arkham State Hospital.
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There are several references to the horror film Saw (2004) in the film. For example: Edward Nashton/The Riddler's modulated voice resembles Jigsaw's voice. The Riddler's Rat Trap bears some visual resemblance to Jigsaw's most famous and notorious trap, the Reverse Bear Trap. Both traps involve the head. Especially in the hostage scene with Gil Colson, the riddles the Riddler gives Batman bear some resemblance to Jigsaw's riddles.
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Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz and Colin Farrell all appeared in the Harry Potter series. Robert Pattinson played Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005); in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016), Zoë Kravitz played Leta Lestrange and Colin Farrell played Percival Graves; Kravitz reprised Leta for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018).
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Though refined, this incarnation of the Riddler invites some comparisons to the Clock King, a villain for a less physical but more intellectual Batman. Specifically, many of his various Saw-like traps and schemes revolve around the concept of 'running out of time' while the victim waits to die, similar to his own experiences at the Orphanage of Fear, where many children could do nothing but wait to die due to the horrific living conditions. The Mayor is struck on the head and then slowly suffocates under a duct-tape 'mask', unable to defend himself, barely aware of what is happening, and unable to breathe properly once his air supply is cut off. Commissioner Savage has a giant rat maze sealed and fixed around his head, able to do nothing but wait and watch the hungry rats advance toward his face in the maze, then dying in horrific agony as they gnaw at him, though an arsenic injection finishes the job, because such a method of death was probably too time-consuming even for the Riddler, given its karmic nature. For District Attorney Gil Colson, being fitted with an Explosive Collar and given a 2-minute window to solve the Riddler's riddles fits the theme easily; the unhinged villain is aware that the answer to the last one is a riddle only he could know, but will refuse to answer out of fear of Falcone's revenge against his loved ones, essentially putting him in an unwinnable situation where he can only wait for the clock to count down. For Bruce, his inability to reach him easily means he has to get a little creative; he simply sends him a letter bomb and banks on the fact that even a recluse like Bruce will eventually go through his mail. Admittedly, he himself seems to think this is a long shot, but he has few options even for reaching Bruce, let alone giving him a more 'fitting' death. For Carmine, the second the Riddler sets Batman on the trail of the 'Rat with Wings', his time as the leader of Gotham's underworld begins to run out; the Riddler knew he would not stop searching until he discovered who Batman was, especially once he realized how connected this was to the natural corruption in Gotham's system and that criminal activity continued even after Sal Maroni's arrest. When Gordon revealed the truth, Falcone's power vanished and his own 'allies' turned against him; despite his claims, it was clear that some criminals in Gotham's underworld would come out to take his blood out of disgust at his dishonorable conduct, and it was quite likely that one of them would eventually kill him. It is also a fact that once he was exposed, it was only a matter of time before Batman dragged him out of the entrance of the Iceberg Lounge and straight into the Riddler's crosshairs. For Bella Reál, she is less the target of his actions than the final blow against Gotham. When the bombs go off, the city will be flooded and, if unchecked, will gradually destabilize over the coming months, its citizens turning on one another as food and resources dwindle, and the city slowly devouring itself alive while waiting to die in horrific conditions with no hope of relief, just as the Riddler did. With Reál dead, there would be no unifying figure to calm the citizens and lead them to rebuild the city, and the city could only slowly succumb to decay as the days passed.
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After Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), it was the second Batman film to be released in March. Overall, this is the fourth theatrical Batman film not released in the summer, after Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) (December), Batman v Superman (March) and The Lego Batman Movie (2017) (February).
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Behind the Scenes (7)
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Colin Farrell wears makeup and a fat suit for his role as the Penguin, with the facial prosthetics made up of six pieces. To make sure there were no visible seams, crew members would shine harsh flashlights in his face before approving him to go to set. When production went into lockdown due to the pandemic, Farrell got really into working out and the costume team had to keep resizing his fat suit; they even came to his house once to say: "Colin, you've gotta stop working out."
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Years earlier, while working with Philip Seymour Hoffman, makeup artist Mike Marino had convinced the actor to shave his head to make applying a wig easier; Hoffman agreed immediately so he would not have to sit in the makeup chair longer each day. For this film, Marino convinced Colin Farrell to do the same. "Colin shaved half of his head, like St. Francis, you know?" Marino said. "He had to walk around town with a hat on all the time because he looked like a monk, but it worked out good because I had Sasha make a toupee hairpiece to mimic where his hairline started. It was just a top piece, and sides combed into his own hair."
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When filming resumed after months of lockdown due to COVID-19 and Robert Pattinson tested positive only one day after returning to set, director Matt Reeves did not want to risk catching COVID too and transformed himself on set into "a burrito," wearing a mask, gloves, a head covering and scuba-diving goggles. Reeves said, "You couldn't see my face, and this is the way the actors saw me for the rest of the movie. I was like this ridiculous, hermetically sealed creature. It was absurd."
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Contains a major spoiler — show
Barry Keoghan said he had a 'steel' hook in his mouth that was 'slicing in' during makeup. He was terrified of the 6-hour-long makeup process required to prepare for the role. Keoghan was afraid the metal staples used during the makeup would end up giving him permanent scarring.
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The scene in which Gil Colson tells Selina about the rat inside the club had to be rewritten and reworked. Peter Sarsgaard said he didn't feel it was working in rehearsal, and Matt Reeves says that on the day of filming he realized Sarsgaard was right, so he stopped the scene, reworked it, and they came back and shot it differently the next day, which is the scene in the film.
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While The Batman was filming, the world was in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was in fact one of the only films in production at the time. Filming continued for a while, but when Robert Pattinson tested positive for COVID, the production shut down for a couple of months; the crew dispersed to their homes and Colin Farrell returned to Los Angeles. With little else to keep him busy, Farrell jumped on his treadmill and exercise bike and promptly lost 30 pounds, and as makeup artist Mike Marino recalled, "I got in touch saying, 'Dude, what are you doing?' He goes, 'I can't keep this weight on.' He had already slimmed down, but there was still more weight he wanted to lose. He said, 'I can't help it. I'm stuck here. I have to do something.' He was exercising pretty hardcore. So I flew to his place with the piece to try on." After Farrell's weight loss, Marino thought the makeup now looked like a deflated penguin, with the neck and suit overlapping nearly four inches in the back, and a stressed but determined Marino told the production he would need to remake everything. "I life cast him again at his house. I went back to my studio. I glued on the makeup to the life cast. Then I mimicked it side by side. I measured and we remade everything. We went to London to put it on him and it worked great, but now [his body] had to be bigger too." "We had to add back all the weight he'd lost. It was a bit of a stressful situation, but you can't tell the difference in the resculpt. Everything, every line, curve, etc. I was very careful with measuring." In the end, Marino had to copy the pieces and remake the molds before returning to London to resume filming; Claire Flewin made some adjustments to the suit and Jacqueline Durran made small stitching adjustments, so the suit stayed the same but with fine-tuning. Marino claims Farrell is a true professional when it comes to prosthetics, and although he has been privileged to work with many actors over the years, he said of Farrell: "Honestly, I've never seen anyone do what he does with this makeup. He and Eddie Murphy are the best made-up people I've ever seen. He'd get in front of the mirror and do things, use expressions, and see what worked for him. When he laughs and opens his mouth wide he doesn't look weird; he really looks animated." Reeves's passion for makeup effects and Farrell's willingness to try something radical and against type created a perfect collaboration, and Marino said: "Matt had worked with some prosthetics in the past. So he knows everything about makeup effects. He knows Stan. He knows Rick Baker. He knows about everybody. I don't think he'd ever worked on this level before, but I think he was confident enough and used it as best he could."
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Thirteen visual effects companies provided the visual effects for this film: Scanline VFX, The Third Floor, Inc., Weta Digital, Industrial Light & Magic, Crafty Apes VFX, Atomic Arts, Territory Studio, Static Chair Productions, Halon Entertainment, Stereo D, Clear Angle Studios, Lidar Lounge and Barnstorm VFX.
Characters & Cast (13)
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Robert Pattinson's audition/screen test took place in May 2019 in Los Angeles while he was rehearsing for the shoot of Tenet (2020). Pattinson had to lie to Christopher Nolan about it, but Nolan, who was no stranger to Batman and Warner Bros., immediately figured it out. Pattinson: "I said I had a family emergency. And as soon as I said it, he goes: 'You're doing the Batman audition, aren't you?'" When Pattinson was told he had won the role of Batman a day before principal photography on Tenet began, he was surprised that Nolan also knew and congratulated him, even though Pattinson had not yet told anyone.
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Director Matt Reeves wrote the script with Robert Pattinson in mind, not even knowing whether he would want to be in the movie. After watching Pattinson's performance in Good Time (2017) and becoming captivated by him, Reeves began to imagine Pattinson in the role at a certain point as he was writing. Pattinson was Reeves's top choice because he was "always that version of what I saw in the page. I think of Bruce Wayne as this recluse rock star in a decaying manor. There's this part of me that so saw Rob [Pattinson] as that and I had no idea that he would be interested in playing the role at all. I thought what if Rob doesn't want to play Batman? This would be a disaster." But Reeves didn't know that at the same time, Pattinson had become fixated on the role of Batman without even knowing the status of the project. Around that time in 2018, Pattinson and The Batman producer Dylan Clark had a general meeting about potential collaborations, with no specific project in mind. Clark: "We're talking about 20 different things. And then he [Pattinson] starts kind of saying, 'So what's going on with Batman?'" After Reeves finished the script eight months later, he finally met with Pattinson, who still didn't know that Reeves had written the role with him in mind: "I had to try and imagine what he had written, and I hadn't even read the script. I would come in with this notebook full of notes."
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Robert Pattinson auditioned for The Batman using Val Kilmer's original Batsuit from Batman Forever (1995). But because Pattinson's head didn't fit into Kilmer's cowl, he wore the one George Clooney wore in Batman & Robin (1997). Oddly enough, the former Batman Christian Bale also auditioned for Batman Begins (2005) using Val Kilmer's original Batsuit from Batman Forever (1995), but including Kilmer's cowl.
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Director Matt Reeves was "devastated" when Robert Pattinson was cast in Tenet (2020), because he thought it meant Pattinson wouldn't want to play Batman. Reeves was convinced that since Pattinson was doing only arthouse films at the time, if he were to do a blockbuster it would only be once, and said: "I was devastated. I wrote this script with Rob in mind. I wanted him to be my Batman. When he's doing a blockbuster with one of the definitive Batman filmmakers, I thought, 'Okay, so there goes that. He's not gonna want to be Batman.'" Luckily for Reeves, that wasn't the case and Pattinson was actually eager to portray Batman.
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After Matt Reeves officially replaced Ben Affleck as director in February 2017, Warner Bros. announced that Affleck would also no longer reprise his role as Bruce Wayne/Batman. On May 16, 2019, Variety reported that Robert Pattinson was in negotiations to take on the role of Batman. By the end of the month, it was reported that he had officially signed a deal to star as Bruce Wayne/Batman and that he was director Matt Reeves's first choice. Reeves confirmed the casting two days later on his Twitter account by posting a GIF of Pattinson's character from the film Good Time (2017), accompanied by three bat emojis. The film's connections to the DC Extended Universe film series were removed from the script and Matt Reeves wrote his own story.
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There was immense controversy surrounding Robert Pattinson and his physicality for the lead role. Before the film's release, Pattinson made off-hand jokes in interviews about how he had not physically trained for the role. Some people genuinely believed he had not worked out for the film and were full of contempt toward the actor. It was not until the film's release that it was confirmed the actor had in fact physically trained for the role.
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Eiza González, Ana de Armas, Hannah John-Kamen, Nathalie Emmanuel, Alicia Vikander and Ella Balinska screen-tested for Selina Kyle/Catwoman. Zazie Beetz also auditioned for the part, but was turned down due to scheduling conflicts with Atlanta (2016). Beetz previously played Sophie Dumond in Joker (2019).
- #524
- #525
Contains a major spoiler — show
Zoë Kravitz is the tenth actress to play Catwoman in a live-action film or TV series, after Julie Newmar, Lee Meriwether, Eartha Kitt, Michelle Pfeiffer, Casey Easlick, Halle Berry, Anne Hathaway, Camren Bicondova and Lili Simmons. This makes Catwoman the second most frequently portrayed comic book villain, after Lex Luthor, with eleven portrayals. The Joker is a close second, as Barry Keoghan is the ninth actor to play him, after Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, Roger Stoneburner, Heath Ledger, Jared Leto, Cameron Monaghan, Joaquin Phoenix and Nathan Dashwood.
- #526
- #527
Easter Eggs & References (13)
- #528
Contains a major spoiler — show
When the Riddler is caught by police in a corner diner, law enforcement finds several identification cards on him. One says "Edward Nashton," referencing the New Earth version of the Riddler who would eventually change his name to Edward Nygma. Another ID card says "Patrick Parker," an alias long thought to have been used in the comics, although nobody could name a single issue where it happened. The truth only came out when Alex Jaffe, who worked for the DC Comics webpage, tried to research where the name came from: in November 2013, some unknown prankster edited the Riddler's Wikipedia page to add "Patrick Parker" to his aliases, without adding a citation. People then started taking that Wikipedia page (or each other) as fact, assuming that if it's written on the internet, it must be true. And yet it never was.
- #529
Contains a major spoiler — show
Although Barry Keoghan is credited simply as "Unseen Arkham Prisoner," it's obvious that he is the Joker. Director Matt Reeves revealed that in The Batman's universe, Keoghan's Joker has had his scars from birth and his permanent smile is the result of a congenital disease, so he can't stop smiling. Batman had already encountered the Joker in his first two years and they have a history together, although he isn't calling himself Joker yet. The obscured makeup was based on Conrad Veidt's appearance in The Man Who Laughs (1928), whose role in that film was the main influence for writers/creators Bill Finger, Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson to create the Joker.
- #530
This is the first solo Batman film shot on digital. Matt Reeves confirmed that the filmic '70s look of The Batman was achieved by running the finished digital image through film and then scanning it back, a process that also used an IP (interpositive film) and a bleach bypass. This is the exact technique Greig Fraser used for his other film, Dune: Part One (2021), because he did not want the image to be super fine and smooth.
- #531
- #532
Viewers unfamiliar with British pop culture may be baffled by Alfred's reference to having worked in the "circus" before entering the Waynes' employment. In this context, the "circus" refers to Cambridge Circus, a street in Soho, London, and for further context, MI6's fictionalized headquarters in John le Carré's espionage novels sits beside it. Alfred therefore used to work in the spy trade, possibly as a field agent, since he taught Bruce his combat skills.
- #533
In a recording in which Thomas Wayne announces his investment in the renewal fund, he says, "I believe in Gotham", the first line spoken in The Long Halloween, itself a nod to the first line spoken in The Godfather. It also echoes "I believe in Harvey Dent" from Harvey's District Attorney campaign in The Dark Knight, a line that had also been used earlier in The Long Halloween.
- #534
- #535
The convenience store that gets robbed at the start of the film is called 'Good Times Groceries'. This is a reference to the film Good Time (2017), which led director Matt Reeves to write the script with Robert Pattinson in mind after seeing his performance. The robber disguised as a Drop Head also wears a red jacket similar to the one Pattinson's character wears while robbing a bank in Good Time (2017).
- #536
- #537
Contains a major spoiler — show
The film contains several nods to John Carpenter's Halloween (1978). For example: at the beginning of the film, the Riddler breathes heavily while watching the Mitchell family on Halloween, breathing much as Michael Myers, the villain of the Halloween franchise, does when stalking his victims in Halloween (1978); the scene in which the Riddler ambushes and takes D.A. Gil Coulson hostage in Coulson's car mirrors the scene in which Michael Myers ambushes and murders Annie Brackett in her car in Halloween (1978); and in the scene where Batman and Gordon investigate the former Wayne Manor/Gotham Orphanage, a loud and frightening musical note is heard when a figure runs across the hallway, sounding similar to the various creepy notes in Carpenter's Halloween (1978) score.
- #538
- #539
Colin Farrell previously played the secondary villain Bullseye in Daredevil (2003). Ben Affleck, who portrayed Matt Murdock/Daredevil in that film, is Robert Pattinson's direct predecessor in the Batman role. In this film Farrell once again plays the secondary villain, the Penguin, opposite Pattinson's Batman.
- #540
Contains a major spoiler — show
The film contains several references to the horror film Saw (2004). For example, Edward Nashton/the Riddler's modulated voice sounds similar to Jigsaw's voice. The Riddler's Rat Trap looks somewhat similar to Jigsaw's most famous and infamous trap, the Reverse Bear Trap; both traps involve the head. The riddles the Riddler gives Batman, especially during the hostage scene with Gil Colson, are somewhat similar to Jigsaw's riddles.
Deeper Meaning (20)
- #541
- #542
- #543
- #544
Matt Reeves cites the Batman comic "Ego" as an influence on Batman's portrayal in this film: "I wanted to get into the mindset of the character and I wanted to think of the psychology for me. I think one of the cool deep-dive ones was Darwyn Cooke's Ego. He's confronting the beast that is Batman, and there's a kind of duality. There's a lot in the story about Bruce Wayne confronting the shadow side of himself that's Batman and the degree to which you have self knowledge. There's psychological union, where Batman is broken and he does things for reasons he knows and reasons he doesn't know yet."
- #545
Early in the film, Alfred notifies Bruce that some accountants are coming over to discuss issues with the finances of the family fortune, but Bruce brushes it off. The audience is inclined to brush it off as well, since it seems to serve as nothing more than a mythology gag about other times Bruce Wayne has had money issues or dealt with overly investigative accountants poking around the Wayne Foundation finances. On a rewatch, it is almost certain that the accountants are coming to tell Alfred and Bruce that the Wayne Renewal Fund, a billion-dollar investment meant to last for years, is depleting far faster than it should, hinting at corrupt siphoning from the money pot.
- #546
At the Mayor's funeral, Bruce sees several protesters outside angrily yelling the Riddler's "No More Lies" catchphrase and holding signs with his Arc Symbol, which showcases that the ultimate threat the Riddler brings isn't the man himself, but rather the effect he has on others sympathetic to his cause through his public broadcasting of his targets' sins and corruption as justification for his actions.
- #547
The general story very loosely follows The Long Halloween, beginning on Halloween and with most of the victims being associates related to Falcone (in the comic they are his blood relatives, but here they are just dirty politicians and police officers on his payroll), leading up to Falcone himself being murdered. However, outside of beginning on Halloween, there is no holiday motif afterwards.
- #548
In the interrogation scene between Batman and The Riddler, there is a "tug of war" between the Riddler's theme and Batman's theme. "When Batman realizes he's missed something and he didn't solve it, the music switches back around and it becomes the Riddler's theme again," Matt Reeves said.
- #549
- #550
During the funeral, Bruce notices several people who might be the Riddler, including a random angry man whose daughter died. He is not the Riddler. He is a Riddler. He also recognizes Bruce with a smile, and in the climax he reveals he was inspired by Batman, with a very similar smile on his face. Shortly after that funeral moment, Bruce saves the dead Mayor's child from the Riddler's attack, a child he clearly empathizes with. In the climax, he stops the aforementioned man and then decides to become a symbol of hope and protection. He starts by saving the exact same child.
- #551
In a Freeze-Frame Bonus, the Riddler livestreams one of his murders, and you can see that some people have left comments cheering him on because they feel he is going after the right people. This not only hints that the Riddler sees his killing spree as a righteous crusade against corruption, but also reveals that he has fans, a fact that becomes very important in the climax when some of them show up to help him carry out his last grand plan. Additionally, one of the comments says the Riddler is a much better vigilante than "that goth poser," which hints that some people see Batman and the Riddler as cut from the same cloth -- including, as it turns out, the Riddler himself.
- #552
Contains a major spoiler — show
The Riddler is a lot like the Joker in The Dark Knight (2008): both are insane terrorists who wear disguises and are forensically untraceable, broadcast their crimes, use "cheap" tools, have a relationship with Batman, and gnaw away at the rotten heart of Gotham City. The biggest difference is that the Joker saw Batman as the opposition, while the Riddler saw him as inspiration (then as the enemy). More importantly, the Joker ended up alone, with people helping him only out of coercion, self-interest or delusion, whereas the Riddler inspires groupies to take up his mission just as he was inspired by Batman.
- #553
Michael Giacchino's Batman leitmotif shares many parallels with past Batman scores, evoking elements similar to Danny Elfman's Batman (1989) theme and Shirley Walker's Batman: The Animated Series (1992) theme, and also incorporating the "na na na na na na na na Batman!" horns of the Batman (1966) theme for its A-Bat-in-the-Rafters arrangement.
- #554
Contains a major spoiler — show
There is also symbolism in the fact that, while the stick-up artist and the vandal are freaked out by the Bat-Signal and the Joker thugs are not, it is specifically the latter that Batman targets. He does not go after the vandal making a political statement (albeit a destructive one) or the presumably impoverished hoodlum holding up a bodega out of desperation; he goes after those who themselves go out of their way to target and hurt innocent people for their own sadistic pleasure. This symbolizes that while Batman's actions may have counterproductive effects, his intentions are still good and he is at least aiming at the "right" targets; he just needs to find a better and more productive way of doing so.
- #555
Contains a major spoiler — show
When the Riddler finally contacts Batman through a phone taped to Gil Colson's hand, he excitedly tells him that he has been trying to reach him and that Batman is "a part of" his plans, saying only that Batman will understand what he means when he asks for further clarification. Initially this seems to imply that the Riddler knows Bruce Wayne is Batman, as he exposes the Awful Truth about how the Wayne family's Renewal fund has been financing crime in Gotham without Bruce's oversight of his company's finances after attempting to kill Bruce with a letter bomb, holding Bruce accountable for his family's sins and marking him as another target to be removed in order to expose Gotham's corruption. However, it later turns out that the Riddler is completely unaware of Bruce's secret identity and was accidentally sending mixed messages to what he thought were two different men. What the Riddler actually meant was that his plans called for Batman to expose Carmine Falcone as the Rat who provided the valuable intel needed for the Maroni drugs bust and to take him outside the heavily defended Iceberg Lounge when arresting him, where the Riddler was waiting to shoot him.
- #556
Contains a major spoiler — show
Falcone wears incredibly dark sunglasses even at night. Although he can see without them (or rather has to, for the plot to continue after Selina attacks him), this strongly implies one of two things: they are part of his image, or they indicate he has major vision problems. Given how he established himself through corrupt cooperation with the police and the DA, it makes sense: he overcompensates in building his image as a Don. One of the Riddler's clues to DA Gil, who essentially created Falcone, is how "justice is blind," and his possible vision problems also mirror how he is backed by the corrupted form of justice in Gotham.
- #557
Contains a major spoiler — show
The graffiti artist was just a vandal whose crime wasn't hurting anyone. This likely serves as deliberate foreshadowing that Batman's terrifying presence is harming the city as well as doing good. Adding to this, the building they are vandalizing is the Bank of Gotham, implying grievances against the inequalities and injustices perpetuated by the city's rich, and showing that Batman strikes fear into criminals but does not initially look into the broader causes of Gotham's crime wave. Furthermore, he initially identifies himself with vengeance, which is reactive, responding to wrongs others have committed; the fact that he learns to use his skills to bring hope to Gotham shows that Batman has become more proactive in trying to help and inspire the city as a whole, not just targeting individual wrongdoers. It should perhaps also be noted that they are also throwing lit Molotov cocktails in the bank, implying that they are going a little beyond mere vandalism; for all their potentially righteous anger, anyone in or near the bank if it catches fire might dispute the "isn't harming anyone" part.
- #558
Contains a major spoiler — show
The Nirvana song "Something in the Way" carries a symbolism that is not apparent until late in the film. The thing in the way is Gotham's sea wall, the only thing preventing the city from being flooded, until the Riddler blows it up. The lyrics also refer to a tarp "springing a leak" and to animals being trapped and becoming the narrator's pets, which foreshadows the reactions of panicky people trapped by the flood and Batman's sense of responsibility in taking care of them. It also foreshadows the revelation Bruce has at the climax: that his vigilantism, fueled by his vengeful need for retribution against criminals, is sending the wrong message to the people of Gotham and is "in the way" of him becoming the hero the city needs to make a real difference to it.
- #559
Contains a major spoiler — show
The Riddler's finale, which causes Gotham to be flooded, has two metaphorical meanings. It "washes away" Gotham's corruption and gives the city a chance for rebirth (that is, renewal) through destruction. The irony is that he sees this as a destructive act, and while it is, it is also an act that sets the stage for Batman's change of heart and the city rebuilding itself. He was very much hoist by his own petard.
- #560
Contains a major spoiler — show
Though subtle, this incarnation of the Riddler has some comparisons with another less-physical but brilliantly-minded Batman villain, the Clock King. Specifically, most of his various Saw-esque traps and plans revolve around the concept of the victim's 'time running out' while they wait to die, analogous to his own experiences in the Orphanage of Fear, where many of the children could do nothing but wait to die from their horrible living conditions. The Mayor has his head bashed in and is then slowly suffocated under a 'mask' of duct tape while unable to defend himself, probably only barely aware of what is happening and unable to breathe properly once his air supply is sealed off. Commissioner Savage has a giant rat maze sealed around his head and is pinned down, able to do nothing but wait and watch the hungry rats navigating the maze toward his face and then die horribly in agony as they chew on him, only finished off by an injection of arsenic because such a method of death was probably too time-consuming even for Riddler, karmic as it was. For District Attorney Gil Colson, he easily fits the theme, being fitted with an Explosive Leash and given a 2-minute window to solve the Riddler's riddles; the unbalanced villain is aware that the answer to the last one is a riddle only he could know, but will refuse to answer out of fear of Falcone's revenge against his loved ones, essentially putting him in an unwinnable situation where he can only wait for the clock to count down. For Bruce, his inability to reach him easily means he has to get a little creative; he simply sends him a letter bomb, relying on the fact that even a recluse like Bruce will eventually go through his mail. Admittedly, he himself seems to think this is a long shot, but he doesn't have many options for reaching Bruce, let alone giving him a more 'fitting' death. For Carmine, the second moment the Riddler sets Batman on the trail of the 'Winged Rat,' his time as leader of the Gotham underworld begins to run out; the Riddler knew he wouldn't stop searching until he discovered who Batman was, especially once he realized how connected this was to the natural corruption in Gotham's system and that criminal activity was still ongoing even after Sal Maroni's arrest. When Gordon revealed the truth, Falcone's power vanished and his own 'allies' turned against him; despite his claims, it was clear that some criminals in Gotham's underworld would come out to take his blood out of disgust at his dishonorable behavior, and eventually it was quite likely one of them would kill him. It is also a fact that once he was exposed, it was only a matter of time before Batman dragged him out of the entrance of the Iceberg Lounge and straight into the Riddler's crosshairs. For Bella Reál, she is less the target of his actions than the final blow against Gotham. When the bombs go off, the city will be flooded and, if unchecked, will gradually destabilize over the coming months; as food and resources dwindle, citizens will turn on each other, and the city will slowly devour itself alive while they wait to die in horrific conditions without hope of relief, just as the Riddler did. When Reál dies, there will be no unifying figure to calm the citizens and lead the rebuilding of the city, and the city can only slowly succumb to decay as the days pass.
Career & Awards (4)
- #561
Contains a major spoiler — show
Barry Keoghan is the first Joker since Cesar Romero that has not won an Academy Award, though Keoghan was nominated. All other Jokers were Oscar winners - Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, Jared Leto, and Joaquin Phoenix. Ledger and Phoenix won their Oscars for their portrayals of the Joker.
- #562
The 11th DC movie nominated for an Oscar, after Superman: The Mad Scientist (1941), Superman (1978), Batman (1989), Batman Returns (1992), Batman Forever (1995), Batman Begins (2005), Superman Returns (2006), The Dark Knight (2008), Suicide Squad (2016), and Joker (2019). Of these 11, only Batman, The Dark Knight, Suicide Squad, and Joker have won. Road to Perdition (2002) and A History of Violence (2005), based on comics published under the DC imprint Paradox Press, were also nominated, with Road to Perdition winning.
- #563
Michael Giacchino is the tenth Oscar winner to score a DC film, after Nelson Riddle (Batman: The Movie, 1966), John Williams (Superman, 1978), Ken Thorne (Superman II, 1980, and Superman III, 1983), Jerry Goldsmith (Supergirl, 1984), Elliot Goldenthal (Batman Forever, 1995, and Batman & Robin, 1997), Hans Zimmer (The Dark Knight trilogy, 2005-12, Man of Steel, 2013, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, 2016, and Wonder Woman 1984, 2020), John Ottman (Superman Returns, 2006), Steven Price (Suicide Squad, 2016) and Hildur Guðnadóttir (Joker, 2019, and Joker: Folie à Deux, 2024), who won her Oscar for the first film.
- #564
Life & Family (1)
- #565
Just as in Batman: The Telltale Series, Thomas and Martha Wayne have some dirty business that the villain tries to exploit, with Bruce targeted because of the Sins of Our Fathers. However, it turns out this Thomas was a good man who simply made a reckless choice to protect his family, and he did not intend for his renewal fund to be used by corrupt officials and gangsters, in contrast to Telltale's Thomas, who really was a ruthless mobster who had Esther Cobblepot driven insane and committed to Arkham for her land. Some scenes are also highly reminiscent of ones from the Telltale Series: Falcone having an oddly friendly talk with Bruce while playing billiards is a notable one. In the first season, Bruce also goes to see Falcone in the hospital to get more information about his father's history with him, and confronts Alfred about not telling him about it. In the film, it is Alfred in the hospital bed instead. Finally, both stories have Falcone killed unexpectedly by the main villain, with Bruce unable to stop it despite watching it happen. Even the Riddler's design and MO appear to take some elements from the main villain of the Telltale Series' first season: a radicalized terrorist who hates Gotham City (especially the wealthy elite and Thomas Wayne in particular), recruits other disaffected people into his crusade, wears a grimy mask and broadcasts video announcements to the city with an electronically altered voice. That sounds quite familiar.
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