With the DCU now fully up and running, with a few engine misfires along the way, and the sequel to Matt Reeves’ The Batman finally shooting, the age-old debate is back again. Why not just fold Pattinson’s Batman into the DCU? Could they? Would they? Would you want to?
It’s a debate we have had here, in the Disqus, from time to time. I have gone back and forth on this. From thinking “No way!” to being intrigued by Pattinson’s mournful Batman interacting with the “Gee Whiz!” Boy Scout Superman of the DCU.
Gunn was clear whenever asked. Matt Reeves The Batman, Penguin, and any other spin-offs are Elseworlds stories. The DCU is everything else, from Superman to The People vs. Gorilla Grodd, via Lanterns and Peacemaker, is the DCU.
Now, Pattinson has been asked directly by online outlet LADbible if his Bruce Wayne/Batman would turn up in the DCU and, if he did, how would it go. He talked about the conditions he shoots Batman in vs. the bright world of Metropolis via Atlanta and the sunshine:
“It’s so funny, because Gotham is Watford. It’s a shed in Watford. There’s something so destabilising about when you’re just, you’re in the dark the whole time. I mean, just for eight months in the dark and you literally have no conception of being connected to anything in the world.”
He then didn’t say it would never happen, but said he felt it would be difficult to integrate:
“I think it would be kind of tough to have this version of Bruce outside of that world. It’s one of the only characters, I guess, because of the length of the shoot, but also it’s such a specific kind of [style]; the tone of it gets inside you. I remember that happened to me the last time I did it; it took a while. You’re just in the dark the whole time. Both mood-wise and light-wise, I can’t see anything for like months. It does affect you like; you feel strange afterwards.”
The Batman: Part II opens early 2028. Man Of Tomorrow, from the DCU and featuring Superman, opens next summer.
