SALT LAKE CITY — Gotham City officially has a new protector — Robert Pattinson.
Warner Bros. confirmed to Variety that Pattinson ("Twilight," "The Lost City of Z") has closed a deal to play Batman in Matt Reeves’ “The Batman.”
The movie will come to theaters on June 25, 2021, and will start filming this summer.
Deseret News previously wrote about how superhero fans weren’t thrilled Pattinson was circling the role, going so far as to start a fan petition to replace the actor before he was even cast. Deadline also reported Nicholas Hoult ("Tolkien," "X-Men: Dark Phoenix") was in the running to play Batman.
Both actors also completed screen testing in the Batsuit, according to IGN. Ultimately, Pattinson won the part, despite Hoult apparently “impressing” others. Pattinson replaces Ben Affleck, who stepped away from the character after “Justice League” as the caped crusader.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Reeves is also planning on introducing a full “rogues gallery” of more fantastic villains that haven’t seen much screen time in other movies. According to IGN, various reports indicate Catwoman, Penguin and the Riddler will be heavily featured in a lineup of as many as six villains.
In other DC movies news, Ava DuVernay ("A Wrinkle in Time") announced recently via Twitter that she and Tom King — an ex-CIA agent and author behind DC's “Batman” and “Mister Miracle” series — would be developing a film based on Jack Kirby’s "New Gods." The slightly more obscure characters include Darkseid, Steppenwolf and Mister Miracle.
I previously reported for Deseret News that King had left the ongoing “Batman” series to work on bigger projects — well, now we know what one of them is. The writer also recently shared a line of text on Twitter that possibly points to “The New Gods” acting as an origin film for Kirby's characters.