The Batman Working Title Revealed
12/09/2019 01:26 pm EST
A working title for the Matt Reeves-directed The Batman has been revealed in the current issue of industry production publication Production Weekly. According to reported plot details that surfaced in September, The Batman follows a younger but already established caped crusader (Robert Pattinson) as the Dark Knight detective investigates strange deaths in Gotham City. Batman "must go deep into the dark world" of the seedy metropolis to uncover clues and solve a mystery-slash-conspiracy tied to Gotham's "history and criminals." Batman will confront multiple members of his rogues gallery, including Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz), the Riddler (Paul Dano) and the Penguin (potentially played by Colin Farrell).
The Batman enters production under tentative title Vengeance, according to a listing found in Production Weekly. It was reported in September Batman will film in the United Kingdom at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, where Warners filmed Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Justice League, Wonder Woman and upcoming sequel Wonder Woman 1984.
Reeves has characterized his take on the character as a "very point of view noir-driven definitive Batman story in which he is investigating a particular case and that takes us out into the world of Gotham." Reeves earlier clarified his film isn't an adaptation of Year One, an origin tale for a young Batman, or any particular comic book story.
"I went on a deep dive again revisiting all my favorite comics. Those all inform by osmosis. There's no continuation of the [Christopher] Nolan films. It's very much trying to find a way to do this as something that for me is going to be definitively Batman and new and cool," Reeves said. While not an origin story, The Batman is "definitively Batman," Reeves added, and his picture tries to "tell a story that's emotional and yet is really about him being the world's greatest detective and all the things that for me, since I was a kid, made me love Batman."
Pattinson previously hinted his Batman will live up to the "dark" in Dark Knight, saying he has "no interest whatsoever in playing [a character] who's heroic."
"The only time I want to play someone an audience knows they're supposed to like is when they really shouldn't like them. That's the only time," Pattinson said on Variety's Actors on Actors. "He's a very, very, very troubled person. There's very few of a character that's regarded by everyone as a heroic character that they know that they need to save the day and they know they're good. And I always find it interesting to know that Batman, he's always struggling a little bit, in some iterations of the stories anyway. He doesn't know if he's that great or not. And that's kind of interesting. Walking the line all the time."
The Batman releases June 25, 2021.