The Batman Deepfake Imagines Batman ’66 Star Adam West and Classic Villains in New Gotham City

To say The Batman movie franchise has evolved over the years is certainly an understatement. Looking at how Adam West and the Batman ’66 TV series and film started out so bright and campy – and where we are now in the ink-black shadows of Matt Reeves’ Gotham City, the difference couldn’t be more clear. That wide divide in style is exactly why it’s so funny when you see the two worlds of Batman ’66 and
The Batman 
colliding, in this new deep fake mashup below! 

Deepfakes can be such an unnerving and questionable practice – but this is pretty fun example of how to use it right! It’s not just the face-swapping of characters like Adam West’s Batman, Burgess Meredith’s Penguin and Frank Gorshin’s Riddler – it’s the voiceover dubbing that really sells the concept. It actually feels like Adam West’s Batman has been lifted out of his countinuity and dropped right into the modern Noir-soaked world of Matt Reeves The Batman. 

The release of The Batman on streaming/home video has made a lot of fans go back and reassess their ranking of live-action Batman actors and their respective performances. Robert Pattinson has been getting all the acclaim in the world for his performance as Batman – wearing the suit onscreen for a much greater length of time than any other Batman performer before him. 

Ironically enough, when Robert Pattinson was doing his screen testing for The Batman, he got to try on every single previous Batsuit – except for the one worn by Adam West. For obvious reasons (skin-tight spandex, no padding) no one needed to see how Pattinson looked in a Batman ’66 aesthetic: 

“I weirdly got to try on every single Batman outfit [except Adam West] for my screen test, to see actually which Batman I was,” Pattison told Fandango. He also revealed that there was only one Batman actor whose head and face were the right size for Pattinson to trade cowls with: 

“My head.. the only person who had a large enough head for me to fit in the cowl was Clooney, actually. I did not realize that everyone else has quite small heads… So you can judge it and the most important thing is the cowl; I could only fit into Clooney’s cowl, but then his suit I could not fit into. So I kinda had a very vulnerable midsection and kind of groin area.”

The Batman is now streaming on HBO Max. You can stream Batman ’66 on Prime Video and other VOD services.