The Batman is scheduled to release in just over six months, and there’s still so much we don’t know about it. The first trailer for Matt Reeves’ reimagining of the Dark Knight’s mythos was released in summer 2020 – with another dropping this October at DC FanDome – and it promised a gritty detective thriller rather than a flashy superhero blockbuster. But, according to the latest rumors, it could even have a horror movie flavor to it.
Podcaster @blurayangel has alleged on Twitter that he knows someone lucky enough to have seen an early cut of the Robert Pattinson vehicle at a test screening, and their reaction couldn’t be more glowing. The unnamed source revealed that The Batman is “very graphic, very dark, very scary”. In particular, they praised Paul Dano’s chilling portrayal of Edward Nashton/The Riddler. “I loved every second,” they concluded.
In follow-up tweets, @blurayangel shared more of their friend’s thoughts. They labeled Zoë Kravitz their new favorite Catwoman and praised Pattinson’s Batman voice as “perfect”. In arguably the most intriguing comment, the source claimed that there’s a mind-blowing scene at the end of the movie that made everyone in attendance scream and gasp.
Another tweet reports that the cut seen by the source reached 3 hours in length. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the finished film will hit that epic total, of course, as it’s common for rougher, unfinished edits to be screened for test audiences before being trimmed down for general release. With that said, though, don’t be surprised to see the final runtime settle around the 2-hour mark.
Fans weren’t expecting a “horror movie” vibe, but we know Dano’s Riddler is a serial killer in this iteration, so it seems Reeves is going to really lean into the character’s darkness – don’t expect the family-friendly (ish) green-suited puzzler from the comics and previous adaptations to show up here. All in all, these reactions have only got us more buzzed to see The Batman when it finally swoops into cinemas on March 4th, 2022.
