The end of Matt Reeves’ The Batman saw Paul Dano’s Edward Nashton/The Riddler brought to justice, with the terrifying villain apprehended and put behind bars where a befriended another Arkham Asylum inmate — that other inmate revealed in a deleted scene to be the Joker. With Dano having brought the Riddler to life on screen and with him also crafting the villain’s origin in the forthcoming The Riddler: Year One comic, that scene leaves open a world of possibility for the character’s future as well and according to Dano, he’s open to exploring that future.
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Speaking with ComicBook.com, Dano said that if there was a desire to explore the future of his Riddler, he’d be there for it, though it’s also something he hasn’t given a lot of thought to just yet.
“If they wanted there to be one, I’d probably be there. But I actually have not thought a whole lot about it, and I find it curious myself that I’ve somehow spent even more time with this character, because someone asked me, when we were doing Batman press, ‘Did you take anything home from the set?’ And I was like, ‘No.’ Of Edward’s. I was like, I don’t need anything of that guy in my home. Jokingly,” Dano said. “And then here I am, and I have spent, on and off, a year or two writing this comic and that was really, it felt right for the medium of comics, because it’s a really good way to explore internal monologue. Where film, I think, voiceover only holds to a certain degree. And this kind of offers the chance to get into what a person like that, that sort of obsessive thinking, almost like an inner monologue that picks up throughout the comic. And so not a lot of my attention has gone towards his future. Maybe it will someday.”
Dano also told us that while he has no idea if he will ever have the opportunity to play Riddler in live action again — The Batman 2 was confirmed to be going forward at Warner Bros. though there have been few details about the project — it’s something that he’s open to, both because he loved making The Batman and because of all of the time he’s invested in the character by writing The Riddler: Year One.
“So, the essence of the comic does come from the work I did to give the performance … I’m sure that I’m deeper into this than ever because of writing this comic,” Dano said. “But the essence, the emotional essence of it is something I’d worked with already. And the comic has grown into its own thing, but the essence comes from the work I did going into the film. And I have no clue if I will play the Riddler in live action again or not. But like I said, I loved making The Batman, so I think I certainly would.”
The Riddler: Year One #1, written by Dano with art by Stevan Subic, goes on sale October 25th. As for The Batman 2, the film does not yet have a release date.
