Robert Pattinson’s The Batman Isn’t Part Of The Prime DC Movie Universe
The new Batman movie starring Robert Pattinson won't exist in the current DC Extended Universe, it will be in its own world.
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When you see that a Robert Pattinson The Batman movie is coming out with a new actor in the cape and cowl, it’s only normal to wonder where this new guy will fit in with the rest of the on-screen comic book content landscape. After all, we are reaching something like critical mass on the sheer number of different actors and actresses who play essentially the *same* character these days. You practically need an info graph hanging on your wall to keep track of it all. This is why it’s a little less confusing (for now) to know that the new version of Batman won’t exist in the current DC Extended Universe group. MovieWeb is reporting that he’s going to be in an alternate universe with no overlap to our current group of DC characters.
This upcoming Robert Pattinson version of Batman/ Bruce Wayne will exist in the Earth-2 setting which is akin to the multiverse for simplicity’s sake. It’s a totally different place than what we’ve seen in the current DC Extended Universe that just came off of the Zack Snyder’s Justice League team-up and will basically reset a new universe around the character. Though it can get confusing with so many different iterations of the same character, it does get a bit easier knowing that a new one like this will just be in his own world, clearly defined by a new setting.
The characters that Robert Pattinson will encounter in this new version of Batman will start a standalone group. It’s separate, of course, from the current DCEU cast of characters including the Ben Affleck version. But it also doesn’t overlap the CW’s Arrowverse or Gotham universes or HBO’s Titans all of which either feature Batman or at least make reference to the character. This doesn’t mean we can’t see the worlds (or dimensions in this case) colliding at some point, but for now, The Batman will work to establish a completely new and independent timeline. Additionally, just in case you were keeping track for record-keeping sake, the new JJ Abrams-produced Superman movie won’t be in this Earth-2 thread. So we could get another, totally new version of that hero at some point.
When Robert Pattinson hits the screen as Batman it’s looking like he will take the character in a much grittier direction with things completely stripped down for the superhero. The story apparently picks up early in his crime-fighting days, not too dissimilar to Batman Begins in this way, but without some of the flashier aspects of the Bruce Wayne story. This Earth-2 setting will feature a grim Gotham, a dark place that’s being overrun by crime. A bunch of different villains are set to appear including Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman, Colin Farrell as Penguin, Paul Dano as Riddler, and John Turturro as Carmine Falcone.
We were originally supposed to get Robert Pattinson on the screen as Batman as early as June of this year. But Covid-19 and pandemic-related delays pushed that timeline back first to October and then all the way to a year from now, next March 2022. So we have some time to wait before getting our eyes on this new universe on Earth-2. But it should be well worth the wait when it finally happens.
