Reported First Description Of Pattinson's Batsuit Teases Awesomeness
Has Battinson been outfitted?
Rumor-mongering website We Got This Covered is reporting that its sources have gotten a peek at the duds Robert Pattinson will wear in the upcoming The Batman — and if their report is accurate, it'll be a version of the Batsuit quite unlike any we've seen onscreen before.
Now, before we go any further, it should be noted that WGTC's rumor reports should always be taken with a grain of salt. The website's track record is as spotty as it gets, and while it has accurately reported inside info in the past, this can easily be chalked up to the "Even a Broken Clock is Right Twice a Day" effect.
Having said that, this latest report falls in line with other, independently reported rumors that The Batman will be based, at least loosely, on the Jeph Loeb-penned limited series The Long Halloween. Published between 1996 and 1997 and featuring art by comics great Tim Sale, the series is set in the early days of the Dark Knight's crime-fighting career (as The Batman is known to be), and features Bats shaking down Gotham's criminals while investigating a series of brutal murders.
According to WGTC's report, Pattinson's Batsuit will feature a look very similar to the one Sale created for The Long Halloween. We're talking a grey suit with traces of black (especially in the mask), with a large black Bat-emblem on the chest; a big, billowy blue cape with a blue cowl, and very long, pointy ears.
Once again, we can't say for sure whether this rumor is accurate — but it does stand to reason that the look for Pattinson's Batsuit would have been completed recently. Sure, he screen-tested in costume before landing the role, but it's likely that the suit used for his test was from a previous production (like the Dark Knight series), which is par for the course for superhero reboots.
The Batman will be going before the cameras very soon, so it's likely that its iteration of the Batsuit is at least close to being finalized; whether or not WGTC's mysterious, perpetually anonymous sources actually got a look at it is another matter.
Is The Batman adapting The Long Halloween?
The Batman writer/director Matt Reeves has gone on record stating that his film won't be a straight adaptation of any one story from the comics, but based on what he himself has said about it, it certainly seems like The Long Halloween will be a heavy influence. Reeves has said that the flick will be a noir-ish, gritty tale, and we know that it'll feature a pretty extensive rogues' gallery of classic Batman villains, with Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz) and the Riddler (Paul Dano) having been cast, and Colin Farrell in talks to play the Penguin.
That checks two boxes right off the bat (pun intended, sorry), and earlier this year, the rumor mill churned forth another nugget: that The Batman will see the Caped Crusader investigating a series of ghastly murders plaguing Gotham. If this turns out to be accurate, and Reeves continues to insist that his movie isn't an adaptation of any existing Batman story, then we're going to have to go ahead and state that the director is full of it.
At any rate, it would be pretty cool to get a more comics-accurate depiction of the Batsuit. The Dark Knight's look in previous movies has always been pretty cool, but let's face it, no previous version has had much of a resemblance to anything we've seen in the comics' pages (especially the one with the Bat-nipples).
From Tim Burton's Batman to Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, movie Batman's costume has always resembled tactical body armor modified to look like a Batsuit more than anything else. Particularly due to the fact that The Batman will be giving us an earlier, less experienced version of the Caped Crusader, we'd really like to see something more in line with the classic, blue-and-grey color scheme that DC fans love. One could make the argument that such a getup would be a touch too reminiscent of Adam West's Batsuit from the campy '60s television series, but we would counter that Hollywood costume designers are paid gobs of money to make superheroes look awesome onscreen, so we probably need not worry too much about that.
We'll see how it all shakes out in, oh, a year and a half or so. In addition to those previously mentioned, The Batman will star Jeffrey Wright (Westworld) as Jim Gordon, Andy Serkis (Black Panther) as Alfred Pennyworth, and John Turturro (The Jesus Rolls) as crime boss Carmine Falcone; the flick will come flapping into theaters on June 25, 2021.