With a little over two months to go until the release of The Batman, Empire Magazine has been chatting to director Matt Reeves about the upcoming DC Films reboot, with the filmmaker explaining how his depiction of Batman’s alter-ego Bruce Wayne has been influenced by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain.
“When I write, I listen to music, and as I was writing the first act, I put on Nirvana’s ‘Something In The Way’, that’s when it came to me that, rather than make Bruce Wayne the playboy version we’ve seen before, there’s another version who had gone through a great tragedy and become a recluse,” said Reeves, explaining how an orchestral version of ‘Something In The Way’ ended up accompanying the film’s first trailer. “So I started making this connection to Gus Van Sant’s Last Days, and the idea of this fictionalised version of Kurt Cobain being in this kind of decaying manor.”
Reeves went on to reveal that Robert Pattinson came onto his radar for the role through his work in the Safdie Brothers’ Good Time, stating that: “In that movie you could really feel his vulnerability and desperation, but you could also feel his power. I thought that was a great mix. He’s also got that Kurt Cobain thing, where he looks like a rock star, but you also feel like he could be a recluse.”
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“Bruce has been hiding away,” added Pattinson, reinforcing how this will be a very different interpretation of the billionaire playboy philanthropist than we’ve seen previously. “He’s not really a socialite at all. He’s building all these little contraptions and things, just with Alfred. And even Alfred thinks he’s gone insane!”
The Batman sees Robert Pattinson (The Lighthouse) donning the cape and cowl as Bruce Wayne/Batman alongside Zoe Kravitz (Big Little Lies) as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Colin Farrell (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) as Oswald Cobblepot/The Penguin, Paul Dano (Escape at Dannemora) as Edward Nashton/The Riddler, Jeffrey Wright (Westworld) as Jim Gordon, Andy Serkis (War for the Planet of the Apes) as Alfred Pennyworth, John Turturro (The Big Lebowski) as Carmine Falcone, Alex Ferns (Chernobyl) as Commissioner Pete Savage, Con O’Neill (Ordinary Lies) as Chief Mackenzie Bock, Peter Sarsgaard (The Killing) as Gotham D.A. Gil Colson and Jayme Lawson (Farewell Amor) as Bella Real.
The Batman is released on March 4th 2022.