Production on The Batman shuts down after Robert Pattinson reportedly tests positive for COVID-19
Aux Features FilmThe global coronavirus pandemic hasn’t stopped and shows no signs of ever stopping, but that doesn’t mean the movie business has to stop. Well, it did for a while, but now that things are slightly better outside of the United States, some productions are getting back to work—productions like Matt Reeves’ The Batman, which just restarted in the U.K. earlier this week after being suspended five or so months ago. Unfortunately, The Batman is already being forced to shut down again, with Deadline reporting that “one of the people on the production” tested positive for COVID-19.
The studio released a statement confirming as much, saying that the person has been isolated “in accordance with established protocols” and that “filming is temporarily paused,” but the person in question was not identified out of respect to their privacy. We don’t know how long this temporary pause will last or if it will dramatically impact the production, but Deadline says that Reeves believes he has another three months to go on the shoot. Still, The Batman is a long ways off, with Warner Bros. planning to release it in October of 2021, so it hopefully won’t be too bad. If you’re curious to see how it all looks, The Batman got a teaser back at the DC FanDome late last month.
UPDATE: According to Vanity Fair’s “highly placed sources,” the person who tested positive is none other than The Batman star Robert Pattinson. This hasn’t been confirmed and nobody has said anything official, probably because of that whole “respecting their privacy” thing mentioned above, but Vanity Fair seems pretty confident in this.
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He didn’t have any Bat Vaccine?
Bat-Hydroxychloroquine
The active compound in Bat Shark-Repellent Spray is showing promise in clinical trials
Isn’t that Batman’s style? Get himself infected, survive through sheer force of will, and then help Alfred whip up a vaccine to save Gotham just in the nick of time?
I came across an article somewhere about some scientists who were studying how bats are able to live as carriers of so many diseases without it seeming to harm them much. They were hoping to learn how the bat’s immune systems were able to make accommodations to live with the presence of some diseases rather than react with a severe immune response that can be as bad as the infection, and defend the body in a more passive way, maybe ultimately coming up with a way to adapt it for humans.Now, someone in the comments saw the obvious horror movie implications, but got it stupidly wrong: they said, “hey what if something like that went wrong and turned people into zombies?” It’s like people have forgotten about all other horror monsters, including the ones that should automatically get all bat-related things like this.
tbf, vampires and zombies are basically the same thing. Night of the Living Dead was inspired by vampire novel I Am Legend; while vampire literature is a sexed up take on the Revenant myth.
Eh. There’s no way the guy who said that was thinking that or knew any of that, though, so I’m not conceding the point in this case. He was working from a place of ignorance, not one of the relationship between the two as these definitions evolved. Plus, this was starting off from the whole business of the bat-related stuff, which is associated with vampires in modern horror classification.
yeah I know, I meant to just come in with a glib remark but it turned into genre trivia 😛
I may have read the same thing … they’re called virus reservoirs. Hopefully that subplot makes it way into The Batman …
Are we sure it wasn’t Smylex?
If they wanted to stay on brand it should have been rabies.
Actually COVID came from bats too, so it sort of works.
This all started with a bat…this will all end with a bat.
Batman is such a “close talker” too.
Didn’t he wear a mask ?
How can this be when all the characters are wearing masks anyways??
Only Batman wears a mask, the rest of the Gotham folk take their chances with it.
Ironically worn upside down in 2020.
doesn’t cover his mouth anyway
Deadpool had the right idea all along.
which is ironic because you know he loves breathing on people
He’s not wearing a mask as Batman, Bruce Wayne is the mask! Geddit?Eh, eh, geddit? It’s like, Batman is the real guy, and he’s only pretending to be Bruce Wayne. Do you understand, yeah?
or was it his nemesis The Pangolin?>>>tune in next week, same bat cough, same cough coughcoougghcoughthump
Excellent.
If he’d spent more time in the gym building his muscles he’d have been too strong for the covid. #notmyskinnybatman
it worked out amazingly for The Rock.
You know who didn’t get covid? George Clooney.
That’s because of the bat nipples.
Idiot.
Batman, “Hmmm…on second thought, hanging my cowl in a Bat Cave maybe not the best idea. Note to self: bats: tasty, but deadly!”
Robert Pattinson catching Covid is the funniest possible way to end Robert Pattinson Week at the AVClub.Hope he gets better soon.
Not Rob Bat Battin’ Bat! Save him!
A Weekly Wackidido in the wild! I do hope the nickname catches on.
This is all Ozzy’s fault somehow.
Just cast Scott Adkins in his place.