Robert Pattinson Not Working for Marvel Made Him More Attractive for Batman Role

The official reports arrived late last week, confirming that critically-acclaimed actor Robert Pattinson had indeed won over director Matt Reeves and the executives at Warner Bros. to earn the role of Bruce Wayne in the next film about Gotham’s Dark Knight, The Batman. Known by many for his role in the Twilight films, Pattinson is now ready for his second major franchise, beating out the likes of X-Men star Nicholas Hoult for the job. After a bout of screen testing last month, WB locked in on Pattinson, though his various roles in the last few years weren’t the only things that helped him land the gig. As it turns out, the studio was keen on finding someone that wasn’t previously associated with DC’s main rival, Marvel Studios.

On Tuesday morning, The Hollywood Reporter released a new piece detailing Pattinson’s journey though the Batman audition process. Borys Kit, the insider who wrote the report, noted that Warner Bros. actively looks for actors who haven’t already made their mark on the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is growing more and more difficult to find each and every year.

As Kit explained, there aren’t any stipulations in the Marvel Studios contracts that keep actors from joining any DC projects down the road, but executives are concerned that “cross-pollination dilutes both brands and can cause confusion for audiences, especially from a marketing perspective.”

It ultimately came down to Robert Pattinson and Nicholas Hoult for the role of Batman, with just about everything riding on a screen test in a Batman suit. Hoult has starred in four X-Men films for Fox and Marvel to this point, but that didn’t matter as much to WB as the movies weren’t a part of the MCU and Hoult was in heavy makeup as the massive blue Beast for the majority of his time with the franchise.

Ultimately, Pattinson won Reeves over with his screen test, and that’s all that mattered in the end. Although his freedom from an existing franchise clearly helped put him into consideration into the first place.

What do you think of the casting of Robert Pattinson as Batman? Are you excited for Matt Reeves’ new trilogy of films? Let us know in the comments!

The Batman hits theaters on June 25, 2021.