Robert Pattinson's Batman Could Join The Larger DC Universe [Updated]

Update: James Gunn has chimed in to say that Variety's original reporting on this matter is entirely incorrect:

There are few reporters I love more than @adambvary – truly a good guy – but in this case he needs to get a new source as this is entirely untrue. https://t.co/a7cnbTfpSi

— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) December 14, 2022

Our original story follows.

Remember when "The Batman" came out earlier this year and pretty much everyone agreed that it was good? After the usual public outcry whenever a new actor is announced for the role, Robert Pattinson proved the doubters wrong with the grungiest and most delightfully emo take we've seen from the superhero in quite some time. The stellar cast of supporting players all brought their own unique spin on classic characters like Catwoman, Jim Gordon, the Penguin, and the Riddler. And best of all, director Matt Reeves seemed to have carte blanche to do whatever the heck he wanted to do with the fan-favorite character, allowing him to take full advantage of a story that wasn't weighed down by the constraints of the usual shared universe connections.

Well, as it turns out, there's a chance that last part may have been too good to be true.

In a new potential bombshell from Variety, scuttlebutt has pointed towards the possibility that new DC Studios co-heads James Gunn and Peter Safran are considering taking this walled-off corner of the franchise and turning Pattinson's version of the brooding bat-obsessed vigilante into the main Batman in whatever shape the new interconnected DC universe takes. According to the report:

"A well-placed source says Gunn and Safran are exploring the possibility of incorporating filmmaker Matt Reeves' iteration of Batman with actor Robert Pattinson into their wider universe."

The news that Robert Pattinson could suddenly become the new face of the DC universe comes ahead of the much-discussed meeting between the new DC creatives and Warner Bros. Discover CEO David Zaslav, one that will go a long way towards deciding the new course for the embattled superhero franchise. This throws a fascinating (and sure-to-be divisive) wrinkle into the previously reported news that Reeves' "Batman" movies/spin-off shows would remain safe from the restructuring — /Film's Joe Roberts provides a compelling counterargument here — that has already begun to affect other holdovers from the previous regime. Director Patty Jenkins, for instance, most recently had to come out and clear the air regarding what exactly happened with "Wonder Woman 3."

Should this possibility indeed come to fruition, then that adds even more evidence to the idea that James Gunn and Peter Safran may be wiping the slate clean from Zack Snyder's initial vision for the franchise (which used to be colloquially referred to as the DC Extended Universe). But for those who felt that "The Batman" was so refreshing in the first place precisely because it told a self-contained story without the distractions that plague so many other shared universes these days, this may sound like precisely the wrong direction to take. Given the success of both "The Batman" and Todd Phillips' standalone "Joker," maybe not everything needs to be swept up into an "It's all connected" franchise.

From a practical standpoint, however, it definitely makes a certain amount of business sense to want to consolidate the sprawling franchise under one unified DC banner. For now, it remains to be seen how this rumor ultimately shakes out.