Gotham hosts a dark and vengeance-based love story in the latest trailer for The Batman
The new trailer for Matt Reeves' The Batman might as well be a trailer for The Catwoman
Film News The Batman
Batman and Catwoman, sitting in a tree. C-R-I-M-E-F-I-G-H-T-I-N-G. Stories about the Dark Knight have occasionally front-loaded the romantic relationship between Batman and Catwoman, like that excellent double date comic from a few years ago or even the end of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, and it looks like Matt Reeves’ The Batman is going for its own take on the other dynamic duo in this new trailer.
The clip is as much a tribute to Zoë Kravitz’s Selina Kyle as it is about Robert Pattinson’s Batman, with the two doing some flirty-yet-brooding banter and Selina getting the trailer’s best line (“I’ve got nine of ‘em”). We also see more of Paul Dano’s Riddler, including an actual riddle, though it is a pretty easy one. (“Justice” is his second favorite thing after bats, Edward. C’mon.)
Also in this trailer: Some kind of mystery involving Bruce Wayne’s parents/his early days as Batman, a falling out between Bruce and Alfred (Andy Serkis, seemingly playing a regular human), and what appears to be growing distrust between the Gotham City cops and Batman. There’s also a musical cue that sounds an awful lot like “The Imperial March.” Batman and Darth Vader do have a lot in common, since they both wear masks and capes, and the rhythm of “The Imperial March” is good for trailers since you can time punches and stuff to it.
If you anticipate enjoying The Batman but are worried that it might not offer enough backstory for the Gotham cops or for its version of The Penguin (a grizzled old creep played by handsome man Colin Farrell), you’re in luck: HBO Max is developing spin-off shows of The Batman based on the Gotham cops and its version of The Penguin!
The Batman will be in theaters (and only in theaters, sorry HBO Max) on March 4.
104 Comments
This is speaking as a straight guy; but I don’t think Bruce Wayne/Batman is really good relationship material.
Pfft, he’s rich. One straight guy to another, I’d marry him. I’d be a trophy husband!
I’d give him some slack for the rich.
I guess I could just buy something pretty every time my husband disappeared in the middle of the night to gallivant around the streets in weird little fetish outfits.
Bdsm fetish saves a lot of marriages. I just state that for a friend.
for a friend
Who’s your friend? Asking for a friend…
Yeah that’s why I’m never for him dating like, a regular person such as Vicky Vale or whatever. A civilian. He needs someone as crazy as he is, who jumps off buildings wearing fetish gear. Good thing he knows some wild, leather wearing dommes in Selina and Talia.
Or one of his boy wonders. Or Alfred.
Late. Was yesterday a G/O holiday? (Most folks I know got the day off last Thursday)
I just assumed yesterday everyone who was still working for the A.V. Club piled their meager possessions into a VW Van and drove to their new Worker Housing Units in LA.
Only to discover when they arrive that the VW van is their new Worker Housing Unit.
I don’t hate the idea of dark batman. Some of my favorite versions (The Dark Knight (2008), Year One, Long Halloween, etc.) are incredibly grim in tone and story.This looks oddly juvenile in its sincere devotion to the bit. Every line is moody, angsty, and spoken without a hint of irony. And the villain is a generic serial killer in a balaclava who knows our hero’s secret and taunts him from the shadows. Add to this mix a Batman who, while an incredible actor, doesn’t appear to have any ability to leven this material and you have what looks like an incredible slog. And this, again, from someone who holds up the Nolan films as being quite good (the first two at least). Or to put it another way, I’m not complaining that this is straightly dark instead of camp, I just wish it looked of a higher quality in its writing (and costume designs).
Ill never understand why people make assessments like this from trailers.
You’ll never understand why people assess if they want to see films based on the clips of footage studios release in order for people to assess whether they want to see those films?
That’s not what I said at all. I said I don’t understand assessing whether a film is sufficiently dark or gritty or whatever based on trailers when it’s so rarely an accurate depiction of the film’s tone since, to your point, it’s made by a marketing arm of the studio and not the actual people involved in making the movie.
Yeah I agree, that’s why I typically don’t watch trailers, seeing events out of context isn’t always a great way to judge how they’ll really turn out, and trailers can sometimes show things that got cut from the final version, or, conversely, show you all the good bits and ruin the mystery.
Correct, when I see a trailer I automatically assume it’s the opposite of what the movie actually delivers. Those “marketing people” operate with complete impunity to completely misrepresent what the movie is about. Take Shindler’s List, for example, from that dark trailer you would have never expected it to be so light and fun.
And yet Twitter is salivating over the movie, already ready to call it one of the greatest comic book movies ever seen.
Wait, people on Twitter are being over the top?
That makes sense to me. We haven’t had a properly grim superhero film outside of the Snyder ones in a long while. And Batman is always sort of huge.
I want a Catwoman with proper cat ears. Is that too much to ask?
Yeah, that’d be sweet…
Is there a butthole cut?
The continuing march of Batman movies getting unceasingly darker and more “gritty” is eventually just going to end in two hours of a black screen accompanied by a ton of screaming and a droning barely audible low tone that substitutes for Batman’s growl.
Snyder’s prison shower scene with Batman is going to be a reality isn’t it?I weep for the future.
I can’t wait to hear this version of Batman utter his iconic line, “You know, I’m something of a scientist myself.”
Oh, for sure. That has to be in there—the more gravelly the voice, the better.I also want him to be extremely pissy and pedantic if someone ever calls him Batman.“It’s the Batman. I don’t just call you ‘Bitch’.”
Riddler sends a message reading “Die Batman, Die!”Batman: “Huh. He must be German.”
The Robin: No one who speaks German could be an evil man!
He specialises in monorails, apparently.
Which of two will say, “We’re not so different, you and I”?
Catwoman said it in a trailer that showed during Spider-Man. My eye roll was practically audible.
Really? Good lord, that’s too sad they actually still use that line.
Just once, I want a villain in a movie to say “We’re very different, you and I.”
“We actually have very little in common, which explains why we’re on different sides of this good vs evil issue!”
“We’re not so different, you and I.”“What? I’m like a foot taller than you.”“I mean in a moral sense.”“But… you’re a criminal who hurts innocent people for fun. I only hurt criminals.”“There are no innocents!”“What about babies?”“I… okay, fine, babies, but they’re going to get hurt by life later on anyway, so what does it matter if it’s me or someone else who hurts them?”“I mean, it matters to them. Like, not everyone suffers the same amount in life, so you adding to their suffering just to make some kind of point is a pretty dick move. I wouldn’t do that. QED, we’re quite different.”“…I TIRE OF THIS CONVERSATION!”
“I mean, I’m a Virgo and you’re a Gemini. Talk about incompatible!”
For added points: “We’re very different, me and you.”
“Jesus, we’re SO. DIFFERENT. That’s why I’m gonna fight you about it.”
“We’re both carbon-based lifeforms who inhale oxygen.”
I thought you were being sarcastic at first but yes, they do use that line.
I’m still waiting to see Batman take off his suit and reveal he’s wearing a My Chemical Romance shirt underneath. Bruce Wayne looks like an emo kid who’s trying way too hard.
Like My Chemical Romance, then
Metal studded leather wrist bands and black nail polish would look great on Robert Pattinson, admit it.
He probably would, but I just can’t see Bruce Wayne as someone who dresses like a Hot Topic employee. It just doesn’t fit. He looks more like the Penguin from Fox’s Gotham.
Oh, I literally meant RobPat the person would look good in that kit.But who knows, maybe we’ll get an emo-pop-punk Batman that’ll blow our minds in the future!
Finally, the dark and angsty take on Batman that viewers have been clamoring for since the last dark and angsty take on Batman, way back in 2017.
Yes, but in this one he’s a white man. And the bad guy is a white man. So very different from before.
My fucking kingdom for a light-hearted take on Batman where he does a ton of detective work, has some cool fights off and on, but the focus is on his life as a well-liked (by some, at least) vigilante whose basically a stern father figure.Let the whole mess of what that ACTUALLY means be left to the critics and film school dissections (we get it, he’s fascist, blah blah blah).
Same with Superman, too. Stop making these dudes living, breathing, DSM-5 chapters in every fucking movie.(I will still see this opening day, I felt the need to cop to that immediately)
And this is why love the Batman: Brave & The Bold series. A sane, smart Batman barely, but politely, tolerating the clueless buffoons (Aquaman!) and monologuing C-level archvillians (Kiteman!) he’s forced to deal with everyday. Occasionally goes gritty to even things out.
Batman: The Brave & The Bold would be a great tonal template, as would Batman: The Animated Series, imo. Basically, he needs to be wearing a grey suit and a blue cowl.
Oh my heart hurts thinking about a classic Neal Adams costume on the big screen never happening…
Right? How good would that look?!
🙁
Ha I love Brave and the Bold and Aquaman is hilarious in it! I loved Justice league unlimited Aquaman with his luscious locks and badass hook hand, but it is nice seeing a light-hearted version, even if just for variety.
I’d like to see not only a lighter tone, but a period piece where all the tech and shit would still be cold war era.
I’ve been wanting a Batman film/TV series set in the original 30s time period for ages. Have him start taking down bootleggers and hustlers, not realising that he’s clearing the competition for the ruthless Penguin to take over.
30’s Batman is just The Shadow without guns. I’d rather see The Shadow or The Spider myself, but I was a weird kid and loved the pulps.
I would absolutely go for a new The Shadow! I loved the stupid Alec Baldwin one as a kid.
Cold war era would potentially be great. Superhero movies never really “make sense” in any traditional way, but they are somewhat more intelligible in a world that lacks smart phones, the internet, omnipresent video surveillance, etc.
I’d love a ”No One Lives Forever” vibe, but U.N.C.L.E. went that way and didn’t really make any money.
Best I can do is a goofy one full of neon paint and Party City costumes.
Try the Harley Quinn animated series?
I was thinking live action, the animated stuff has much more variety. And I did love HQ.
I’m okay with Batman being a bit dark and angsty. Guy did become a bat-themed vigilante after the murder of his parents, after all, it’s okay if he’s a bit introspective. A certain amount of pulp faux-operatic tragedy and grittiness is reasonably appropriate for the character.But yes, it would be nice to have a take on Batman which lightened up a little bit at least. And yes, anyone who thinks that Superman should be a brooding walking trauma should be fired out of a cannon into the sun.FWIW I like this video’s take on it:
I think my real issue here is it seeps into EVERYTHING. Like this trailer, it looks like Riddler might be tied into the Wayne family bullshit, maybe they weren’t truly great people, or Batman did something bad early on in his career that made Riddler the way he is. You know – a murdering psychopath.You can have Batman be created from trauma and also have a rogue’s gallery that’s…at least somewhat playful, right? It doesn’t have to be terrible all the way down.
Yeah, that’s fair.
Instead, we had to get a generation of Zack Snyder Batman…illogical, rage clouded, and the worlds worst detective.
I actually don’t mind Batman being the dark and gritty one, fits the character origin, though it would probably good to have him do more investigation.Superman, however, shouldn’t be gritty. Make him the lighter and brighter one, dark and gritty Superman is nonsensical.
In their (WB/DC/etc) eyes, they have to differentiate from Marvel. Marvel does lighthearted superheroes, so they feel obligated to go super dark.This is why their animated stuff is better, fewer rules and less need for box office justifications.
Bring back the Batusi! And Gilbert and Sullivan! And a costume that doesn’t look like thirty pounds of molded foam rubber!
And the irony is the Riddler would be the perfect villain for a more light-hearted Batman. Someone closer to the Frank Gorshin version (without all the cackling) who is more interested in heists than murder. Honestly, I thought Jim Carrey would pull it off but he needed a better story and a director who could rein him in, and no mass mind control nonsense.
I can’t tell if the story line or tone will be good or not, but solely based on this clip, this looks like it might have the best straight up fight choreography for live action Batman so far.
Huh, yeah, I had the same takeaway. Actually, I had two takeaways: 1) looks like the Riddler is still specializing in riddles that can be cracked by reasonably clever second graders and 2) if nothing else can be said for this movie, this is the first superhero movie in roughly forever where it looks like the punches are actually landing.
Yay for landing punches. I think the Riddler is one of the hardest characters to write. Make the riddles too easy, and the gimmick seems silly. Make them too hard and it becomes unbelievable that anyone could figure out the intended answer (that’s been the problem with movies like the Da Vinci code series; so many logical leaps necessary to get the “right” answer to the clues).
As usual, I think Batman: The Animated Series got it right, where half the puzzle was to figure out what the riddle was, before then figuring out the answer. For instance, it’s not too hard to solve “If the world were equitable, I’d still have my old job” (answer: “if the WORLD’S FAIR, I’d still have my EX-POSITION”), but you have to realize that the original comment actually is a riddle and not just a throwaway line.
I just found out that Aquaman is Catwoman’s stepfather. It’s a strange world.
At least until you search “Catwoman’s Stepfather” on pornhub, and then it makes perfect sense.
The Imperial March took inspiration and stylistic influences from Chopin’s Marche funèbre and Gustav Holst’s The Planets, and Grande marche de medjidie, ottoman anthem by August Ritter Von Adelburg. written between 1914 and 1916.
Now you’re just making up words
I understand that Batman pretty much only works at night, but does the whole thing have to be so darkly lit with that focus fall-off at the edges?The 4K trailer does look better, but I saw the Heavy Spoilers version on Youtube with the big white HEAVY SPOILERS bug in the corner.
That looks ok or whatever but I am not in any way excited to go see it. And probably will not.
Catwoman’s mask is hot garbage.
Yeah, but what about that tired-ass Batmobile rocket thing?
Batman coming out of the shadows and no-selling machine gun fire is the perfect image of the character. Loved seeing every frame of that.
Huh. I didn’t like that, because I think in other versions the main reason having the lower half of his face uncovered works is because he’s in constant motion, so firing machine guns have less of a chance of blowing his face off. I think he stops and does the towering thing before the fighting starts. Or afterwards, during an interrogation. The walking into machine guns is more a Clark thing.It’s a cool image though.
I’m confused that the bullets didn’t knock him down. Or at least break his stride a little.
Well, you can tell by the way he use his walkHe’s a woman’s man; no time to talk
Bad guys aren’t smart enough to shoot at his exposed face, I reckon.
Wait, that’s the perfect image of Batman? Well, culture has officially passed me by.
Ugh, it looks like a fourth sequel in Nolan’s trilogy if it was made for TV. The Riddler puzzles look like a knockoff of The Game, or like a TV version of Seven. Pattison looks constipated, Kravitz looks like she’s in a commercial, and sorry, but “I’ve got nine of them” is some silly, half-assed screenwriting. Why do I want this Batman? They aren’t even trying to do something new or different. Fuck this Batman, and frankly, fuck Batman, he’s tired.
In some ways this feels like a Bruce Wayne origin story rather than a Batman one, especially as I think the story starts with Batman having been a vigilante for a year or two. Just the way they have a character point out that Bruce isn’t doing any philanthropic work, when the idea of him acting as a ridiculous yet charitable playboy has been part of the characterisation for years now, suggests to me that developing his civilian persona is going to be a big part of the movie.
My Big Batman Concept that I’d do if I had any control over the IP is a version who returns to Gotham as Batman and does crimefighting full-time for like three years, then “returns” as Bruce Wayne so that everyone with two brain cells to rub together doesn’t connect the two arriving at the same time. But because he suddenly has to live a double life he needs an assistant, so he recruits Barbara Gordon with the caped crusade (this version is in a wheelchair because she pushed her brother out of the way when a crooked cop tried to kill Jim Gordon’s family; I’m fully about Oracle representation but shifting the backstory to make her a hero instead of a victim). We cover his life as Bruce Wayne trying to solve the actual root problems with Gotham with the hope of phasing out the triage solution that is Batman; after all, his dad was a doctor and taught him to treat the symptoms but to focus on the disease itself.
I could literally go on for like fifty pages but yeah suffice to say I think there’s an interesting story in a Bruce Wayne who actually wants to fix things instead of wanting to beat people up forever.
The way they did the Oracle origin in Young Justice is an interesting compromise between hero/victim: she gets stabbed in the spine by Orphan while trying to stop her from assassinating the Joker, in an attempt to make sure Orphan doesn’t go down the wrong path.
“I wasn’t trying to save Joker. I was trying to save you.”
So it becomes a tragic accident, but as a result of trying to save the soul of a young assassin, one that will eventually become a hero because of her sacrifice.
I wish Young Justice got more love, but at least it’s got more episodes.
I’m looking forward to this very much and I have no problem with a Dark Batman movie again (no more dark Superman movies until Darkseid turns him on the people like in the cartoon and the people lose hope in him but that’s like Superman movie #4 not the 1st one).Batman should be Dark and ugly and gloomy until he finds himself some Dick. Once Dick comes into his life, Batman is filled with joy and light then and that Dick changes who Batman is!Yes that was 13 year old humor but still great! Anyway, Batman should be gloomy till Dick Grayson comes into his life and Batman becomes more of a big brother/dad and he has to easy up and then you have the Justice league who also makes him not as gloomy.
Looks like a winner!!!
All live versions of Batman are just trying to play second-fiddle to the 1990s DCAU interpretation of the character, which will always be the best. Best origin story (Mask of the Phantasm), best overall stories, best villains, best Batman portrayal. Nothing will ever match it.
I don’t like the look of this film. It doesn’t have the “realism” of the Nolan films and yet, the costume designs are duller, for some reason.
I’d like to see a Batman movie in which he gives criminals rabies and munches on mangoes in-between fights.
The action set pieces and fight scenes look absolutely amazing. More fluid and epic than anything yet seen in a Batman movie. Yay for a Batman that can move! And the relationship between Selina & Batman looks fun. But I simply do not care for this angsty, dark “my childhood is a lie” / “Thomas Wayne was an illuminati” crap. It’s straight from the all the bad decisions of the Amazing Spider-Man movies. We don’t need a mystery about Batman’s parents. I dunno. Maybe that means in five or six years they’ll reboot this with a fun / colorful take that’s a bit closer to the comics yet not completely campy?
Always like it when they let Batman fuck
Covid’s gonna be all done by March 4th, in time to see this safely in a theater, right?
The answer is no.
Not one but two black women tell a white guy with various psychological issues he can do better while he discovers that his parents may have been into some shady shit? Comic book movies are detached from the real world.Yeah, this looks special.