After months of anticipation, Matt Reeves finally satiated the appetites of fans by giving them a long-awaited first look at Robert Pattinson's Batman costume in The Batman movie. The newest reboot of the Caped Crusader will be the 10th film in the DCEU, and is slated to hit theaters in June 2021. While plot and story details have been relatively scarce (for the most part), rumors and speculation suggest that this take of the Dark Knight will be relatively early in his career, a far cry from Ben Affleck's grizzled and seasoned version of the character.
Matt Reeves himself has been unsurprisingly hush-hush about the film, dropping only the occasional bit of casting news on Twitter. He also stated his interest in the noir, pulp detective aspect of the character, implying that the plot may revolve around Batman trying to solve some sort of central mystery. Pattinson has also talked about how excited he is for the project, specifically his desire to delve into the morally grey aspects of Bruce Wayne's psyche.
Now fans can finally put an aesthetic to the film, as Matt Reeves' first look at the Batsuit is filled with loads of detail worth poring over, despite only being 56 seconds long. There's a lot of inspiration visible and a lot of shocking inclusions, so let's dive into examining the newest cinematic Batsuit piece by piece.
Robert Pattinson's Bat-Symbol
The short video posted to Reeves' Twitter shows Pattinson walking slowly into focus in a red lit room, obscuring mostly everything aside from his chest and the cowl. This means that the first thing readily visible to fans is the new Bat-symbol, which is a shocking departure to what we've gotten in the past. While Ben Affleck's Bat-symbol was massive in the style of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, this one is much smaller (although bigger than Bale's from gun Joe Chill used to kill his parents. If so, then this camera test reveals a lot about Bruce Wayne's pathos in this movie. Keeping the gun that changed his life so close to his heart is both a page taken right out of the source material as well as a textbook indicator of repressed trauma, which Batman is all about.
Robert Pattinson's Batman Armor
A big change from Affleck's Batman costume is the fact that this one appears to be made out of some kind of metallic plate armoring. While Bale's Batman was also decked out in a military/riot gear style armor, Matt Reeves seems to be taking it one step further, with the suit looking more technological and segmented. The combination of the metallic Bat-symbol and the armored design has a lot of fans looking towards the Arkham Knight suit as a potential design influence, but there's also the suggestion of what such an armored suit could mean. With casting news implying the fact that this movie will feature several of Batman's rogues gallery, it isn't a stretch to assume that the reason the suit is armored is because Pattinson has already had run-ins with some of his more eccentric foes.
Robert Pattinson's Batman Cowl & Collar
Departing from the armor-esque design of the rest of the suit, the cowl shown in the camera test is surprisingly stitched together. While Bale's Batman wore a cowl made for the military using an impact-resistant graphite-composite, it seems as if Pattinson's Batman will be sticking to a stitched leather look. However, there's also no way of knowing if this will be the case in-universe, as there's always the potential for the film to explain that there's some kind of technology or exoskeleton weave underneath the mask. It's hard to believe that Bruce Wayne would go through the painstaking effort of making a heavily armored Batsuit only to leave his head severely exposed, so there's more than likely something else going on underneath there.
The raised collar is also a point of contention as it's something that we haven't seen yet in an on-screen Batman. In some comic depictions, the raised collar is an extension of the cape that also connects to the cowl. This allows for artistic interpretations in which the cowl is a sort of hood that can be pulled back off the head and extends into the cape. This doesn't seem to be the case based on the camera test footage, as it seems as if the cowl and the collar piece are two different parts, similar to the Daredevil. There's no telling just yet exactly how the headpiece and the collar will work in tandem with each other, and that probably won't be known until we see the suit in action.
What The Batman's Costume Reveal Is Missing
Despite it being a pretty big show-off of Pattinson's Batman costume, there's still a lot of iconic elements of the Batsuit that we weren't able to see in the camera test. A big feature left out of frame is the ears, as there have been a lot of artistic interpretations of them throughout the years, from Frank Miller's short and stubby Dark Knight Returns-style to the overly long and Gothic versions popularized by artist Kelley Jones. There's no way to tell just yet which one Pattinson will lean into, but based on the look of the cowl, it's probably a safe guess to assume they'll be at least Bale's length or longer. The footage also doesn't show off much of anything below the chest, which means we still haven't gotten a look at what the boots or the bladed gauntlets will look like on this version of the character.
The most notable aspect of the costume missing, however, is the cape. While the collar is most certainly going to extend downwards into the cape, we still really have no idea just what it will look like or how it will contrast with the rest of the armored and metallic suit. Let's hope that Matt Reeves follows this first glimpse up with a full photo of the costume, or even the first trailer for The Batman, so we know just how this version of the character will look and move on-screen.
