And of course, despite his concerns, he was cast in “The Batman,” the Warner Bros. tentpole from director Matt Reeves that will start shooting this winter and debuts in June 2021.
Growing up in England, he watched the Tim Burton “Batman” movies. “When I was a kid, it was the only outfit that I had,” Pattinson says. But he won’t reveal where he used to wear his Batman costume. “If I actually said it in an interview, I would definitely have a lot of abuse afterwards,” he says with an outburst of nervous laughter. “If I successfully play the character, I can say it at the end.”
When Pattinson was named as the front-runner for the role, the backlash on social media was intense — a petition even surfaced on
Change.org asking WB to reconsider. “This will ruin my childhood and my dreams,” one commenter posted. But Pattinson is surprisingly upbeat about the mixed reaction. “To be honest, it was less vitriolic than I was expecting,” he says. And he’s not deterred by the doubters: “It’s much more fun when you’re an underdog. There’s no expectation of you.”
Yet times have changed. Many movie stars have been crafting career trajectories similar to Pattinson’s, swinging from independent films to blockbusters and back. And indie directors such as Ryan Coogler have infiltrated the superhero world. Pattinson reveals he had an informational meeting with Marvel around the time of “Guardians of the Galaxy,” but nothing came of it. “I don’t know what I would really be chasing,” Pattinson says. “The idea of trying that transition after ‘Twilight,’ I never saw a road in that direction.” Batman was different because he was the only comic book character Pattinson always loved. “It’s actually an interesting part,” he says. “I think it’s because he doesn’t have any superpowers.”
