More than a year after The Batman debuted its first teaser at a DC FanDome event, the Dark Knight rises once again.
On Saturday, a new trailer for the highly anticipated film featured as the main attraction at this year’s DC FanDome—and it didn’t disappoint. Batman fans have been eagerly awaiting director Matt Reeves’s reboot of the beloved franchise, which faced several production delays due to the pandemic. Now, The Batman is finally set to hit theaters on March 4, 2022. The two-and-a-half-minute trailer remains consistent with the dark tone of the first teaser, as Robert Pattinson’s Batman terrorizes Gotham City’s criminal underworld and attempts to unravel the threads of a new mystery. “It’s not just a call,” Batman says of his famous Bat-Signal as it lights up the sky early in the trailer. “It’s a warning.”
Reeves, who helmed two successful installments in the rebooted Planet of the Apes series, has previously described his take on the Caped Crusader as “an almost noir-driven, detective version of Batman.” The trailer echoes this vision; Batman is shown attempting to crack a case revolving around the mischievous puzzles left behind by the Riddler (Paul Dano). While we see only glimpses of a man who appears to be the famed villain, the Riddler’s been busy planting elaborate clues for Batman to decipher:
Among the few shots showcasing the Riddler is a brief clip broadcasted by a Gotham news report. The serial killer has taken on a decidedly different look from the iconic bright-green suit he often wears in the comics and animated shows, or even the goofy fits he rocks in Jim Carrey’s portrayal of the character in 1995’s Batman Forever. The Riddler has often been one of Batman’s more comical, eccentric antagonists, but Dano’s version appears to be more akin to the infamous Jigsaw Killer of the Saw horror movie franchise.
Beyond the Riddler, the trailer provides extended looks at two characters who made appearances in the first teaser: Catwoman and Penguin. Zoë Kravitz reprises her role as Catwoman after lending her voice to the character in 2017’s The Lego Batman Movie. From what we see in the trailer, it seems like Selina Kyle’s romance with the Dark Knight will remain as complicated as ever in The Batman.
Notably, we also get several lines of dialogue from the Penguin, played by an unrecognizable Colin Farrell wearing extensive makeup and a fat suit. The actor has said in interviews that he’s in the film for only five or six scenes, but he seems to have made the most of them: After the Penguin tells Batman, “Take it easy, sweetheart,” in the middle of a nightclub fight scene, the villain is caught in a fiery, high-speed car chase against the Batmobile to close out the trailer:
As Reeves has previously stated, The Batman will not be a new origin story for the character. That should come as a relief to fans after Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed Dark Knight Trilogy concluded in 2012 and was quickly followed up with Ben Affleck’s appearances in 2016’s Batman v Superman and 2017’s Justice League. Batfleck will live on in the upcoming The Flash film, as he crosses paths with the original film version of Bruce Wayne, played again by the great Michael Keaton. Pattinson’s Batman will exist in a separate universe of his own within the DCEU. Joined by a stellar cast that also includes Jeffrey Wright as James Gordon and Andy Serkis as Alfred, Pattinson seems primed to lead the rebooted franchise in a promising direction. In The Batman, he’ll face off against the darkest rendition of the Riddler we’ve seen yet. This March, vengeance will have a new look in Gotham.
