To date, no live action Batman movie has been a strict adaptation of any specific comic book, nor have any of them drawn inspiration from a singular literary work. More often than not, directors have looked to multiple story arcs for inspiration, with classics such as The Dark Knight Returns, No Man’s Land, Year One and The Long Halloween already having been mined for material. In fact, Christopher Nolan sometimes went deeper and pulled from tales that were contained to single issues, having cited Batman #1 (1940) and “The Man Who Falls” as influencing his screenplays.
When it comes to the upcoming blockbuster that is The Batman in particular, we’ve heard in recent months that certain aspects of The Long Halloween which hadn’t been previously explored on film will be fleshed out in greater detail. And when we factor in how the picture is said to be a murder mystery and feature multiple villains, then the puzzle pieces continue fitting together.
Though Pattinson didn’t name The Long Halloween outright, he did coyly hint as what’s to come during an interview with Variety, saying:
“I really like Matt Reeves and his set up. I mean it’s an interesting direction. It’s something from the comics which hasn’t been really explored yet. You know, it’s kind of crazy shoes to film. I mean, it’s interesting what different directions you can take with it. When somebody plays a specific character, it’s actually quite a lot of leeway. When you look at the different tones of all these movies and the TV shows, I mean you can do quite a lot with it.”
To date, Batman movies haven’t really spent much time highlighting the titular hero’s prowess as a detective, so that’s one thing that makes director Matt Reeves’ effort doubly exciting. Tim Burton touched on that a little though, therefore it doesn’t surprise us to learn that Pattinson really dug his contributions to the franchise:
“Yeah, Batman was really the only kind of superhero who I really had any kind connection with when I was growing up, and really, from the Tim Burton ones. I was just kind of obsessed as a kid.”
You know, Pattinson is actually one of the few actors to have been a fan of the character before landing the gig, so we’ll see if his lifelong obsession pays off when The Batman arrives in theaters on June 25th, 2021.