Here's What Jonah Hill Could Look Like As The Riddler In The Batman
We don't yet know who Jonah Hill is in talks to portray in Matt Reeves' The Batman — but one stunning piece of fan art is making a pretty strong case.
Artist Yadvender Singh Rana took to Instagram to post his rendering of the star as Edward Nygma, AKA the Riddler — and we don't feel it's overstating the matter to say that it will blow your doors off.
First, just a bit of background: earlier this week, we reported that Hill was in talks to star in the film in an undisclosed role, a development that broke right around the same time that Jeffrey Wright was reported to be circling the part of frequent Batman ally Jim Gordon. At that time, all that was clear was that Hill obviously wouldn't be playing Gordon; as far as additional details as to his potential role, we got exactly zilch.
The next day, Variety film reporter Justin Kroll took to Twitter with some extremely juicy tidbits. According to Kroll, Hill had initially asked for an exorbitant salary in the neighborhood of $10 million dollars, which the reporter indicated would have amounted to over twice what star Robert Pattinson is being paid. Kroll went on to state that Hill had been sitting on studio Warner Brothers' counter-offer for over a month, with one sticking point being which part he would play: the Penguin, or the Riddler.
We opined then, and feel safe in repeating, that we find it likely that Warner Brothers had Hill in mind for the more obvious choice of the Penguin, while Hill may have been more keen to take a crack at playing the Riddler. We went on to say that we felt that the Riddler would actually be a better fit for Hill, and this piece of fan art makes us feel about as vindicated in our opinion as we could possibly be. Just take a look at this masterpiece:
Just... how cool is that? Rana posted the image with along with the caption: "Riddle me this you Rodent! I am something that you don't possess. I have trillions of eyes, and still I live in the shadows. I have zillions of ears, and still, I only use four portions of it. I don't need any muscle or strength, and still, I control both sides. What am I?" (We'll have the answer for you at the end of this article.)
We are honestly not sure where in the heck Rana got the idea to go with a steampunk-y aesthetic for the Riddler, but holy cow, does it ever work. Check out his telescoping monocle! All the crazy gears, chains and gadgets all over his hat! His smart, businesslike tie that isn't too wide or too skinny! (Okay, maybe that last isn't particularly mind-blowing. We just really dig this image.)
Well, we've said it before, but it bears repeating: Hill is a fantastic, underrated actor, and we have no doubt that he would bring a lot to the table no matter what role he was cast in for The Batman. But after seeing this, we have to admit that we'll be pretty disappointed if he's not cast as the Riddler, and we also kind of need for him to look exactly like this in the movie. Let's face it: the Riddler is not a traditionally intimidating villain. He wears a green leotard with question marks all over it, normally is depicted looking like he weights about 90 pounds, and the riddles he almost exclusively speaks in don't engender fear so much as they just make you want to kick his ass.
Sure, as portrayed by Jim Carrey in Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever, the Riddler was a little freaky — but only because Carrey himself is a little freaky. If we ran into that man cavorting and rubber-facing around as he does in the film in a dark alley somewhere, we would promptly turn around and walk briskly in the other direction, no matter what color leotard he happened to be wearing.
But this? This is a version of the Riddler who looks like he has some really, truly dastardly things up his sleeve. He looks terrifyingly awesome (or awesomely terrifying, if you prefer), and we can only imagine the gleeful, sinister edge that Hill would bring to the character. This simply looks like the scariest, most formidable Riddler that any version of Batman has ever faced, and we truly hope that someone shoots Reeves a link to this image, along with the simple instructions, "DO THIS!"
We feel the need to point out that Rana does this kind of stuff all the time, and his Instagram is a veritable treasure trove of awesomeness. Want to check out Tom Holland's Peter Parker being consumed by the Venom symbiote? How about zombie Captain America? Or perhaps Iron Thor? You know you want to check out all of these things, and you absolutely should, at your earliest possible convenience.
At any rate, we'll be holding out hope that this turns out to be a prophetic image until we hear otherwise. With casting beginning to ramp up on The Batman, we expect to be seeing plenty of news come down the pike in the coming months, and as always, we'll be all over it. The flick hits the big screen on June 25, 2021.
Oh, yes: the answer to the riddle! It's the brain. The human brain.