A new trailer for The Batman dropped yesterday, this time heavily featuring Zoe Kravitz as Selina Kyle/Catwoman. While fully acknowledging that Michelle Pfeiffer’s performance as Catwoman in Batman Returns is immortal, I like the vibe of Kravitz’s Catwoman. I especially like her and Batman pushing each other’s buttons and constantly leaning in like they’re about to fully make out while still fully masked up as vigilantes. It’s an entirely different tone from the Tim Burton Batmans, but it’s still pretty horny, which is how Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle should be. They can’t stay away from each other, they should always be leaning into and pulling against their mutual gravity well.
As for the rest of the trailer, I still like the look of The Batman. It definitely seems more like an autumn movie than a spring one, but things being what they are, there’s no helping the release date. At this point, even spring 2022 is starting to feel optimistic. I sort of don’t care about the Waynes maybe being caught up in some kind of Eyes Wide Shut society in Gotham City, but that’s because I think his parents are the least interesting thing about Bruce Wayne. I am much more into the woman giving Bruce the gears for “doing nothing” for Gotham. Sure, he’s Batman, but it’s the age-old conundrum that while Batman IS very cool, Bruce Wayne could do a lot more good for the city as just a billionaire philanthropist. The trailer seems to suggest that Batmanning is enough, though, which kind of circles back to the larger superhero movie issue of positioning billionaires with toys as society’s savior, when, in fact, billionaires will not save us, and as long as we recognize that in the real world, fine, but it low key worries me how many people LOVE this fantasy.
Anyway, The Batman continues to look cool, and it blows my mind that Warner Brothers/DC is sticking to their guns in re: this movie not being part of the DCEU. It’s a standalone, and while DC is bringing their multiverse to the screen with Flashpoint, meaning anything can cross over at any time, I do wonder, if The Batman is super successful, if the tables might flip and Matt Reeves will resist being sucked into the DCEU. It’s still a goddamn mess, after all. If I made a Batman movie that ends up lauded and successful, after years of being told I couldn’t play in the other sandbox with everyone else, I might get a little stubborn about exploiting my work to leverage popularity for that other sandbox, too. I can’t wait to see how all this plays out, assuming The Batman is ever actually released.
