Warner Bros. CEO Says The Batman Filming Was Not Expected “To Go Completely Smoothly” After Robert Pattinson’s COVID-19 Case

Yesterday, it was revealed that The Batman production had been paused with reports simply saying that a member of the production team had contracted the virus. It was soon announced that the film’s star, Robert Pattinson, was the one who is sick. Warner Bros. CEO Ann Sarnoff has made a couple of statements since the shutdown, but it looks like they’re already back to filming what they can without the movie’s star. During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Sarnoff explained that they had protocols in place if something like this were to happen.

“I think we never expected things to go completely smoothly. In fact, as we’ve been getting our protocols ready, we built in contingencies,” Sarnoff shared. “If someone tests positive, you do contact tracing, you pause, you evaluate, and come back when you can. I think it would have been naïve to think we wouldn’t have certain cases on certain productions. The most important thing is to be ready for when that happens. And we were very much ready.”

Pattinson is currently on a mandatory 14-day quarantine while director Matt Reeves is reportedly trying to film as much of the film as he can without the lead, including scenes not featuring the actor, or sequences using his body double. Figures in the UK film production industry are reportedly standing behind the coronavirus safety measures being taken on film sets, including The Batman.

Here’s what Adrian Wootton, the chief executive of the British Film Commission and Film London, told Variety on the subject:

“We’re confident that with all measures in place, any production will resume filming as soon as it’s safe to do so. We also believe this will not impact production overall continuing in U.K., precisely because we have such robust health and safety measures operating, enabling our world-class film and high-end TV sector to get back up and running.”

Sarnoff also spoke to Deadline yesterday and explained the studio is trying to figure out what happened. “We’re still in the middle of investigating what is the situation,” she shared. “We’re pausing temporarily for now until we have more information, but we have all the protocols set up to do contact tracing and hopefully get back up into production very soon.”

What do you think about The Batman production resuming so soon? Tell us in the comments!

For now, The Batman is scheduled to be released on October 1, 2021.