Over a year after the first trailer for The Batman premiered at the 2020 DC FanDome, a second look at the film — starring Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne and the Dark Knight — arrived Saturday as part of 2021 DC FanDome (where Michael Keaton also returned to the Batman role).
Long described as more of a film noir than a superhero blockbuster – and a movie that returns to Batman to his Detective Comics roots – the new trailer opens deep in the rainy, grimy bowels of Gotham City, where police apprehend a man who is suggested to be Paul Dano’s the Riddler; a question mark drawn in a cup of coffee’s foam is a giveaway.
While the 2020 trailer showcased Pattinson’s Batman (a.k.a. “The Battinson,” as the actor is called on social media) beating down on goons in clown makeup, the new teaser gives the spotlight to Zoe Kravitz’s Catwoman and the tough-talking crime lord the Penguin, played by an unrecognizable Colin Farrell; while Batman adheres to a strict no-kill rule, he comes close to vehicular manslaughtering the Penguin in the new trailer, proving Pattinson’s Batman to be a grittier take than the big-screen Dark Knights that preceded him.
“Fear is a tool,” Pattinson growls in the trailer, speaking of the bat signal. “When that light hits the sky, it’s not just a call. It’s a warning.”
The new trailer — which, like the first teaser, features a reworked rendition of Nirvana’s “Something in the Way” — comes two weeks after the October 1st, 2021 date that The Batman was previously scheduled to arrive in theaters; Pattinson reportedly caught Covid-19 during filming the following month, resulting in another delay in the already pandemic-halted production. The Batman – the first Batman-centric, non-Justice League film since 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises – will now hit theaters on March 22nd, 2022.