A new feature piece on Matt Reeves’ “The Batman” has arrived in the latest issue of Empire with two new shots showcasing Robert Pattinson’s take on the character.
The use of Nirvana’s “Something In The Way” in the first trailer was no accident, with Reeves telling the outlet he was inspired by the band’s music and the life of its lead singer 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. 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 decided Pattinson would be perfect for his take on Batman after seeing the actor in the Safdie brothers’ acclaimed tense thriller “Good Time”:
“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.”
Pattinson says Bruce’s self-destructive obsession has led to this isolation and caused him to shut out everything and everyone except Alfred:
“Bruce has been hiding away. 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!
[Batman has] been out every single night for two years, getting beaten up and shot and stabbed and burnt, and it shows. There’s a bullet graze on the cowl, right at the beginning. I don’t think that’s been done before.”
The film is set two years into Bruce Wayne’s work as Batman, though the trailers have avoided showcasing a specific time period for this version of Gotham City which could be set anytime in the past few decades.
“The Batman” arrives in theaters on March 4th 2022.
New looks at Robert Pattinson as #TheBatman and Bruce Wayne, via Empire Magazine, textless pic.twitter.com/E076NGJ6X9
— Battman (@BatmanFiles) December 18, 2021