Robert Pattinson Calls Out The Lighthouse Director for Not Wanting to Direct a Batman Movie

The Batman star Robert Pattinson playfully cried foul after Robert Eggers, who directed Pattinson in awards favorite The Lighthouse, said he’s “probably” not interested in helming a large-scale project like a superhero blockbuster.

“It would be lovely if, in the wake of ‘elevated genre’ — I mean, there’s always been elevated genre, always, but in this new thing that’s been going on for like five, 10 years — I think it is broadening a mainstream audience’s cinematic vocabulary,” Eggers told Variety at the Toronto International Film Festival. “So I hope it might give me the opportunity to make one of my own things [on a] slightly larger scale, and to have that opportunity.”

“Would I want to do, like, Batman?” Eggers continued, gesturing towards Pattinson, “Probably not.”

Pattinson then yelled “bullsh-t” before bursting into laughter with Eggers and co-star Willem Dafoe, who most recently appeared in DC’s Aquaman.

Pattinson was confirmed as the new Dark Knight in May. The star will appear as Bruce Wayne-slash-Batman in a trilogy of films, the first now in the works under War for the Planet of the Apes director Matt Reeves.

Reeves has plotted a noir-inspired, detective-driven story that takes Batman into the seedy underworld of Gotham, populated by an already established rogues gallery of Bat-villains.

“I don’t know anything,” Pattinson previously told Variety. “I’ve got an idea how to do about four scenes, and then I’m working on the rest gradually.”

Though no stranger to franchise filmmaking — Pattinson famously starred in five Twilight movies before carving out a path in smaller-focused cinema — the star admitted he needs to get accustomed to the secret-keeping that comes with leading a DC Comics franchise. “I’m so used to pretty art-house movies, where you can watch the movie three times and still not know what it’s about,” Pattinson said.

For Pattinson’s Twilight co-star Kristen Stewart, Pattinson is the “only guy” for the role.

“I feel he’s the only guy that could play that part. I am so happy for him. It’s crazy,” Stewart told Variety at TIFF. “I’m very happy about that. I heard that and was like, ‘Oh, man!’ It’s awesome.”

A24 releases The Lighthouse October 18. Pattinson is now filming Tenet under The Dark Knight and Dunkirk director Christopher Nolan ahead of The Batman, out from Warner Bros. June 25, 2021.