Warner Bros. held its big DC fan event DC Fandome over the weekend, dropping a ton of news and first looks at a whole bunch of its upcoming projects. Amongst those? A new trailer for Matt Reeves’ upcoming The Batman, which shows off the film’s numerous villains.
We got our first look at the film last year (when the film was scheduled to debut in 2021), which showed off a grim and dark take on Gotham’s Dark Knight (played by Robert Pattinson). We saw hints of The Riddler, Catwoman, and The Penguin in that trailer, but this time around, we’ve got an even better look at them.
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In the Watchful City
This year’s trailer shows off a bit more of what to expect, opening with Gotham’s police arresting a guy (who’s strongly hinted as being The Riddler, who’ll be played by Paul Dano) in a cafe, who’s eventually confronted by Batman in prison, telling him that he’s been trying to reach the vigilante. Batman doesn’t react well to this: it seems as though Riddler has done something horrific, and it’s thrown the city into chaos.
Along the way, there’s signs of that Batman has his work cut out for him: he notes that “fear is a tool”, and that when the bat signal lights up, it’s a warning to the city’s underworld. Cut to a brutal-looking fight in which he takes down some people with clown-like makeup on their faces. (To my knowledge, the Joker isn’t in this film, but it looks like he could have some sort of presence in the world).
After that, we get a good look at Zoë Kravitz’s Catwoman (who feels like she’s less a villain and more Batman’s occasional partner), and an unrecognizable Colin Farrell as The Penguin, before we see Andy Serkis’ Alfred Pennysworth warning that it won’t be long before Bruce Wayne is left with nothing — a statement that Bruce seemingly dismisses out of hand.
From there, there’s more scenes of Batman taking the fight to Gotham’s criminals in a nightclub, in some dark hallways, the city’s rooftops, and one intense-looking car chase in which he runs down Penguin.
If anything, the film looks like it’ll be following a bit of the lead left by Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy as Bruce Wayne gets his footing in his early days as the character, both in tone and style, but also in cinematography — there’s a lot of gorgeous-looking shots littered throughout this trailer, and if anything, it looks like it’ll be a very pretty film to watch.
We’ll find out when the movie hits theaters on March 4th, 2022.
