If you’re in charge of the Gotham City Police Department and you need to get ahold of Batman, your best bet is shining a searchlight into the sky. Okay, so maybe that doesn’t sound very impressive, but the fact of the matter is that the Bat-Signal has been the chief way to let the Caped Crusader know that either trouble’s brewing or to intimidate Gotham’s criminals, and Matt Reeves’ The Batman will be the latest movie to show it off.
We know this thanks to actor Jeffrey Wright, who’s playing the GCPD’s James Gordon in The Batman. Here’s what he posted:
Retweeting the video director Matt Reeves shared of Robert Pattinson in the Batsuit, Jeffrey Wright’s tweet included photo of a searchlight being shined upward. The quality’s fuzzy, but there’s no mistaking that that’s the Bat-Signal, although you’ll notice that the light is unobscured, rather than having a Bat-symbol placed in the center. Maybe that’ll be added on before The Batman is over.
While The Batman will follow a younger Bruce Wayne beating criminals to a pulp, it’s not an origin story. It’s been reported that the movie will take place in Bruce’s second year of being Batman, so Gotham City’s denizens are familiar with the Dark Knight, but presumably the police still aren’t overly fond of him.
It hasn’t been confirmed yet if Jeffrey Wright’s James Gordon is already the GCPD commissioner when The Batman begins or if he’s lower down in the command hierarchy, but just like most depictions of the character, we can expect to him to become one of Batman’s key allies in the war on Gotham’s crime. And just like what Gary Oldman’s Gordon did in Batman Begins, perhaps Wright’s Gordon will be the one who sets up the Bat-Signal so that he can contact his unorthodox partner, much to the chagrin of his fellow officers.
No specific plot details for The Batman have been revealed yet, although it’s rumored that the story is based off The Long Halloween arc. When Matt Reeves signed onto the project in 2018, he said that his version of Batman would be an “almost noir-driven, detective version” of the character. Originally the plan was for Ben Affleck to return as the DCEU’s Batman, but by the beginning of 2019, two years after he stepped away from the director’s chair, he exited the project.
Five months after Ben Affleck’s departure, Robert Pattinson was cast in The Batman’s lead role, and thanks to the video posted by Matt Reeves yesterday (which was shot by cinematographer Greig Fraser and scored by composer Michael Giacchino), we now know what his Batsuit looks like, although we still have plenty of questions about the costume. The Batman began filming in London last month, and hopefully we’ll get a more detailed look at Pattinson’s Batsuit before principal photography is over.
Joining Robert Pattinson and Jeffrey Wright in The Batman’s cast are Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman, Paul Dano as Riddler, Colin Farrell as Penguin, Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth, John Turturro as Carmine Falcone, Peter Sarsgaard as Gil Colson and Jayme Lawson as Bella Reál. In addition to directing, Matt Reeves also co-wrote The Batman’s screenplay with Mattson Tomlin.
The Batman will cast its shadow in theaters on June 25, 2021. If you’re curious about what other DC movies are on the way, look through our handy guide.
