The Batman: Robert Pattinson, Matt Reeves and John Turturro on the Caped Crusader’s character, The Riddler’s serial killer inspiration, Nirvana, the sets and more

Robert Pattinson says his Batman ‘starts to believe in himself’ through the film, adding it was a ‘massive honour’ to play the character

Director Matt Reeves says this version of The Riddler – inspired by a real-life uncaught murderer – is one ‘you’ve never seen’, a far cry from past portrayals

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Robert Pattinson (left) and director Matt Reeves on the set of The Batman. Photo: Warner Bros Pictures via AP

Published: 4:15am, 2 Mar 2022Updated: 7:51pm, 3 Mar 2022

How do you reinvent a character like Batman for the movies?

It’s a question filmmakers have grappled with ever since Tim Burton’s glossy, stylised 1989 movie Batman. That picture brought us Michael Keaton as the Caped Crusader, a soundtrack by Prince and an outrageous turn by Jack Nicholson as Batman’s arch-nemesis The Joker. It was high-budget, high-camp – and thoroughly entertaining.

Ironically, the DC Comics’ character had taken a darker turn just two years earlier with the release of Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli’s graphic novel Batman: Year One. That story arc partly inspired writer-director Matt Reeves as he was putting together The Batman, his epic new three-hour movie that stars Robert Pattinson in the title role.

Year One showed the Gotham City crime-fighter in his embryonic form. “He was kind of a drifter, almost like Travis Bickle,” says Reeves, referring to the Vietnam veteran anti-hero played by Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver – a film that unquestionably fed into Joker, Todd Phillips’ incendiary 2019 film with Joaquin Phoenix that detailed the origins of that character. While The Batman was already scripted before Joker’s release, they feel like spiritual cousins.

The Batman makes it very clear what song reflects its nihilistic mood: Nirvana’s Something in the Way, from the grunge band’s masterpiece album Nevermind.