Perspective: ‘The Batman’ is ‘Twilight VI’ and that’s not a bad thing

As “The Batman” continues to soar at the box office, there is one question about the film that remains unanswered: Are the similarities between Bruce Wayne and Edward Cullen all in our minds, or did director Matt Reeves insert them on purpose to drive all the “Twilight” fans insane?

I’m betting on the latter. The film had barely gotten started when Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne shoved someone out of the path of a speeding car, and I leaned over to my daughter and whispered, “That had to be a ‘Twilight’ Easter egg.”

The scene was just too campily similar to the moment in the first “Twilight” film when Cullen came between Bella Swan and a car in a high school parking lot.

By the end of “The Batman,” I had pronounced it “Twilight VI” — the continuation of the Stephenie Meyers series set in a not-so-distant future after some undiscovered strain of Volturi wipe out Bella, her in-laws and her daughter.

I wasn’t the only one.

Fans have taken to Twitter and YouTube to note the similarities between the brooding, obsessive characters who just happen to manifest in Pattinson form: their penchant for shadows, their attraction to complicated brunettes, their compulsion to avenge and protect. The soundtracks of the films are pretty much interchangeable. Then, of course, there’s the vampire ... and the bat.

The official Twilight Saga account on Twitter even gave nod to the similarities, posting a famous clip of the first “Twilight” movie (Bella telling Edward “I know what you are”) with — how to put it? — an alternate ending:

Part of the conversation, of course, owes to the wistful projection of Twihards, enduring “Twilight” fans who remained loyal to the franchise even when it wasn’t cool to be a “Twilight” fan anymore.

Pattinson himself has been the most famous “Twilight” critic, although he reversed course earlier this year and said (in an interview with his current costar Zoë Kravitz) that it’s no longer cool to hate the “Twilight” franchise: “That’s so 2010,” he said.

It’s been almost 10 years since the last “Twilight” movie, “Breaking Dawn: Part 2,” was released, so the “Twilight” starved among us can’t be faulted for wanting for less Bruce Wayne and more Edward Cullen. Some fans were so desperate for Pattinson to reunite with “Twilight” costar Kristin Stewart that they were campaigning for Stewart to play the Joker in “The Batman.”

Others have envisioned an alternate universe in which Pattinson’s two characters interact.

As one person on Twitter wrote, “I hope there’s an alternate dimension where Edward Cullen gives that line about not loving his daughter if his wife dies in childbirth, and then Bruce Wayne appears, beats the crap out of Edward and adopts the daughter as the new Robin.”

While a merging of the world of Forks, Washington, and Gotham City is not likely to ever take place, it’s certain there will be more “Battinson” in the future. The film’s producer, Dylan Clark, told Comicbook.com that there will be a sequel in less than five years.

And given the response from “Twilight” fans who have contributed to the film’s success (it’s nearing $500 million in international box-office receipts), the producers would be smart to throw a few nods to Cullen and family in the next film.

Who’s up for a wall of graduation caps in the bat cave? That beating you hear is not bat wings, but the reanimated hearts of the Twihards.