In this age of comic book TV shows and movies hitting on a near-constant basis, there are certain books that look and feel like they were designed specifically to be adapted to another medium. There’s an element of that at play anytime you look at the gritty, cinematic art of Lee Bermejo, best known to mainstream audiences for books like Batman: Noel and Batman: Damned. His incredibly detailed art shows a version of what classic DC characters like Batman and The Joker might look like if they showed up in “real life,” and it has always seemed like just a matter of time until some filmmaker latched onto his look.
Videos by ComicBook.com
That time seems up, now that we have seen our first look at Matt Reeves’s The Batman, starring Robert Pattinson as the Dark Knight. One of the first instincts — looking at that leather cowl with realistic stitching and a lot of texturing around Bruce’s temples — was to see Bermejo in the face, but a closer look at Bermejo’s Batsuit design for Batman: Damned suggests that it’s more than just a mask.
While the shoulder pads in the costume look a lot like the Arkham games (as does a lot of the costume) it’s hard not to notice that there are more than superficial similarities to Bermejo’s angular, almost boxy chestplate and the distressed metal bat emblem on its chest. You can check out an image from Batman: Damned below.
Pattinson will be playing a version of Batman who is in his second year as a masked vigilante in The Batman, according to various sources. The movie is expected to dial into the noir detective angle that first defined Batman’s comics, rather than the colorful and fantastical superhero stories that he has since been inserted into. With no planned Justice League follow ups in the near future, it seems likely that DC’s shared film universe will be going without a Batman for a while, leaving Pattinson to redefine the role before we get either him or someone else stepping back onscreen with Superman and Wonder Woman down the line.
Directed by Matt Reeves, The Batman also stars Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth; Zoe Kravitz as Selina Kyle; Colin Farrell as The Penguin; Jeffrey Wright as Jim Gordon; Paul Dano as The Riddler; and John Turturro as Carmine Falcone.
The Batman is set to premiere in theaters on June 25, 2021.
What do you think of Pattinson’s look as the Caped Crusader? Be sure to let us know in the comments!
