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Fans Wish Future Batman Robert Pattinson a Happy Birthday

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Actor Robert Pattinson, whose next film is the highly anticipated Warner Bros. 2022 tentpole, The Batman, turned 35 Thursday to an out pouring of warm fan wishes on Twitter and beyond.

His birthday comes a day after a brand new photo of Pattinson as Batman leaked on the internet.

Pattinson is probably still best known for his breakout role as vampire Edward Cullen in Twilight, but has since become recognized and respected for his work in independent dramas and comedies.

Standout performances in Good Time (2017) and The Lighthouse (2019) currently stand as his highest-rated films on Rotten Tomatoes.

Pattinson was born May 13, 1986 in London, England and has been ranked among the world’s highest-paid actors. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and he was featured in the Forbes Celebrity 100 list.

His 2019 outing in The Lighthouse brought him the most critical acclaim but the rumors surrounding his casting as Batman in director Matt Reeve’s The Batman sent buzz around Pattinson into the stratosphere.

In June of 2019 after months of rumors, Warner Bros. finally cast  Pattinson for director Matt Reeves’ reboot of the Dark Knight franchise, that would begin with The Batman. Variety had first reported on May 16 that Pattinson was in negotiations for the part.

Variety said: “Warner Bros. has closed a deal for the Twilight actor to play the Caped Crusader in The Batman, Matt Reeves superhero tentpole hits theaters on June 25, 2021.”

 

Reeves was radio silent during the casting process, only quoted as saying that he was looking for a younger actor then Ben Affleck. Affleck’s older, wizened Bats was conceived by Zack Snyder for Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of JusticeThe Suicide Squad, and Justice League.

Casting was rumored to be highly contested with Reeves clashing with studio heads, and talk  suggested that both Nicholas Hoult and Armie Hammer were even made offers.

Despite those rumors, based on his Tweet at the time, Reeves seemed quite happy Pattinson got the role.

 

Affleck made numerous attempts to get his own Bat film off the ground, but told Jimmy Kimmell that he couldn’t “cut it” as Batman in the DCU films according to Entertainment Weekly.

Affleck said, “I tried to direct a version of it and worked with a really good screenwriter but just couldn’t come up with a version — I couldn’t crack it and so I thought it’s time for someone else to take a shot at it. They got some really good people so I’m excited.”

In that same June 2019 announcement, Warner Bros. confirmed Pattinson would replace Affleck.

 

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Pre-production on the Warner Bros.-DC Comics pic was expected “to start that summer. No official start date has been set for filming The Batman.”

Reeves, the filmmaker behind the last two Planet of the Apes sequels, assumed Batman directing duties from Ben Affleck in January 2017. Reeves will produce The Batman with his Planet of the Apes collaborator Dylan Clark.”

Following his casting, a hilarious photo of Pattinson and his Twilight co-star Tayler Lautner as the 1960s’ Batman and Robin began circulating social media.

In March of 2020, Pattinson posted the first look at the Batmobile that his iteration the caped crusader would be cruising around Gotham City in, posting the photos on his Instagram account writing only,  “#TheBatman????”

Then the COVID-19/Coronavirus pandemic ensued, delaying filming numerous times.

The actor appeared to be stuck in a malaise when he appeared on the 2020 June/July cover of GQ. The magazine published self portraits Pattinson had taken from his self isolation and quarantine with his girlfriend in London.

Pattison who lives in Los Angeles, was in London filming The Batman when the world ground to halt because of the pandemic.

 

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The article revealed that there may be no single individual more suited for self-isolation than the actor: “Pattinson has spent his adult life separating himself from the rest of the world… He was 21 when he was cast in the first Twilight, as the lead vampire in what would become five increasingly popular movies about teen lust in the Pacific Northwest. The final installment of the franchise, which turned Pattinson and his costar, Kristen Stewart, into two of the more famous people in the world, came out in 2012 and grossed over $800 million worldwide. But by that time, he was already mostly gone.”

Vanity Fair continued: “He was starring in David Cronenberg movies. He was on sets in Australia, Canada, or New York City, where he prowled the streets in disguise, trying to develop the right outer-borough accent for Josh and Benny Safdie’s Good Time. He was playing innocents, strivers, outsiders, people who drooled and cried and jerked off, in movies from Werner Herzog, James Gray, Anton Corbijn. He was becoming, film by film, one of the most interesting actors alive. And when he wasn’t working? He was hiding out. From paparazzi, at times. From the Hollywood studio system, at others. From all the weird things the world throws at young actors who already have so much. He was wandering around houses in Los Angeles that were too big, in neighborhoods where he couldn’t go outside.”

“I spend so much time by myself, ’cause you’re just kind of always forced to, that I can’t really remember what it was like not really having that kind of lifestyle,” Pattinson said. Now he was talking to his friends and family, who were having to do the same thing. “I just realize, everyone is so, so vulnerable to isolation,” he says. “It’s quite shocking.”

Pattinson said of working out for the role: The film studio hired a trainer who left Pattinson with a Bosu ball, a single weight, and a sincere plea to use both, but right now, he says, he’s ignoring her. “I think if you’re working out all the time, you’re part of the problem,” he says, sighing. By “you” he means other actors. “You set a precedent. No one was doing this in the ’70s. Even James Dean—he wasn’t exactly ripped.” He says that back when he was the star of the Twilight franchise, “the one time they told me to take my shirt off, I think they told me to put it back on again.”

 

But Batman is Batman. Pattinson called another actor on the film, Zoë Kravitz, the other day, and she said she was exercising five days a week during their exile from set. Pattinson, well: “Literally, I’m just barely doing anything,” he says, sighing again.

 

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Then in September of last year, Pattinson himself contracted the virus.

Vanity Fair said: “Pattinson is said to have tested positive for the coronavirus, causing filming of The Batman to be halted just days after the superhero drama resumed work at studios outside of London.”

Warner Bros. would not comment on any individual worker’s health, sharing only this statement:

“A member of The Batman production has tested positive for Covid-19, and is isolating in accordance with established protocols. Filming is temporarily paused.”

Vanity Fair confirmed through a highly placed source that Pattinson was the individual who became sick.

The production had previously shut down, along with most other entertainment industry work, back in March when the quarantine lockdown first hit.

In the new movie, directed by Planet of the Apes filmmaker Matt Reeves, Batman is in his second year of vigilantism, and is trying to solve a series of gruesome serial killings. The case causes him to cross paths with Paul Dano’s The Riddler, Zoë Kravitz’s Selina Kyle (before she becomes the criminal Catwoman), and the underworld figure Oswald Cobblepot, nicknamed The Penguin behind his back, played by Colin Farrell.

Rounding out the cast is Jeffrey Wright who co-stars as Commissioner James Gordon, Andy Serkis as Bruce Wayne’s loyal butler Alfred, and John Turturro as the gangster Carmine Falcone.

At a DC Fandome event last summer Reeves said of the movie, “It’s a criminological experiment. He’s trying to figure out what he can do to finally change this place. You see that he’s charting what he’s doing, and he’s seeing he isn’t having any of the effect that he wants to have yet. The murders start to happen, and the murders start to describe a history of Gotham. It only reinforces what he knows about Gotham, but opens up a whole world of corruption that went much further.”

Last week a new The Batman featurette leaked that put the spotlight on Zoë Kravitz’s Selina Kyle AKA Catwoman. It featured a few snippets of new footage as well as some insight into the actress’ approach to the character and how she will factor into the events of movie.

Zoë Kravitz revealed the motivation behind the character in this particular incarnation, teasing, “Selina can take care of herself. She really wants to fight for those that don’t have someone else to fight for them. I think that is where Batman and she really connect.”

Principal filming finally wrapped in March.

In a December interview in the New York Times newly installed DC Films head Walter Hamada announced and laid out an intricate plan that included simultaneous Batman stories, and the creation of a DC multiverse.

After experimenting with more standalone stories like Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, DC/Warner Bros. committed to the concept of the cinematic universe having multiple universes running concurrently. Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, last seen in December’s Wonder Woman 1984, exists on Earth 1 for example, while Pattinson’s take on Batman will belong to Earth 2.

[Marvel Comics will be following suit beginning with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness which directly follows the events of Disney+’ WandaVision and continues into Spider-Man: No Way Home which is rumored to guest star Tobey McGuire and Andrew Garfield as their respective versions of Peter Parker alongside Tom Holland.]

Warner Bros.’ upcoming movie The Flash starring Ezra Miller is the film that is expected to set the DCEU Batman franchise in motion, with both Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton set to don the cape and cowl for that 2022 release. The film, co-written by Christina Hodson (Birds of Prey), is based on the well-known Flashpoint storyline from The Flash comics, and will see the Scarlet Speedster travel back in time to prevent his mother’s murder.

Above: DC/Warner Bros. concept art from The Flash.

In doing so, however, he will unwittingly splinter the future into alternate timelines with Michael Keaton’s Batman emerging from one of them.

The Flash is set to hit theaters on Nov. 4, 2022.

“To make all the story lines work, DC Films will introduce movie audiences to a comics concept known as the multiverse: parallel worlds where different versions of the same character exist simultaneously,” the Times wrote.

“I don’t think anyone else has ever attempted this,” Hamada said. “But audiences are sophisticated enough to understand it. If we make good movies, they will go with it.”

The Batman is now scheduled to be released in the United States on March 4, 2022.
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