Matt Reeves has assembled a spectacular ensemble for his anticipated The Batman, and it extends far beyond the casting of Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne. The director’s lucky rabbit foot, Andy Serkis, is on board as Batman’s Alfred, while Jeffrey Wright has been cast as Jim Gordon. Then, there are the villains, including Colin Farrell as Oswald Copperpot, aka The Penguin.
The production on The Batman recently has been shut down, though restrictions are lifting and we expect filming to resume in the near future. When discussing his participation so far, Colin Farrell told GMA News:
I had only started it and I can’t wait to get back. The creation of it, the aesthetic of the character, has been fun and I really am so excited to get back and explore it. And I haven’t got that much to do. I have a certain amount in the film. I am not all over it, by any means. But there are a couple of... some tasty scenes I have in it, and my creation, and I can’t wait to get back. Yeah, I totally feel like it is something that I have not had the opportunity to explore before. It feels original and fun. But I am only at the start of the journey so I can’t wait to get back and really get into it.
We can’t wait for him to get back to it, also. Resuming of filming would suggest a shift back to normalcy that I think many in our industry really could use right now. Like everything else, The Batman has been delayed, but the way that Matt Reeves is constructing this, we expect it will be worth the wait.
In addition to teasing these “tasty” scenes, Colin Farrell confirms that his Penguin isn’t really the main villain of the piece. There are at least three other villains who have been cast in the movie, which we believe will catch up with Batman in his earlier days of patrolling Gotham City. It’s not an origin story. He will already be Batman when the movie starts. But the story likely will sprint through multiple adversaries as it establishes its unique take on Gotham, because Reeves also has lined up Catwoman (Zoe Kravitz), Riddler (Paul Dano) and Carmine Falcone (John Turturro).
And now? We wait. The Batman was targeting a June 2021 release date, but thanks to the ongoing delays in Hollywood and at our local theaters, Warner Bros. shifted the film back to October 1, 2021. For some reason, a Dark Knight movie dropping closer to a Halloween date makes a little more sense… especially if Reeves really is planning a loose adaptation of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s The Long Halloween, as has been rumored. Time will tell.
