Robert Pattinson Says 'The Batman: Part II' Is a 'Left Turn' (Into the DCU?)

People are always coming up to me on the streets, sometimes 10-20 at a time, asking me, “Mike, how do you pick which topics to write about? Is it based on Meghan McCain’s hibernation schedule?” You’ll be shocked to learn the answer is pretty simple, and somehow, not the hibernation thing. (That would have been my bet.) 99% of the time, I choose what will funnel the most clicks to our little writerly haven. That last percent? Well, sometimes I just need a comfort topic to get me through the week, and here we are.

With Primetime hitting theaters this week, Robert Pattinson is making the interview rounds, which inevitably means questions about The Batman: Part II. In fairness, he is actively filming the sequel, and he’s clearly prepared for the topic to come up.

Here’s what he told Collider in the grand tradition of seeming to say a whole lot, but actually saying very little:

“It’s so ambitious. I mean, I sort of said the other day on something that the first one was a different take on a Batman movie, and this one is another… It’s a real left turn from the first one, but somehow it keeps elements of the kind of feel of it. But it just feels really ambitious, and I’m excited to see how it turns out.”

Naturally, that “real left turn” remark stood out, and jumpstarted the theory that James Gunn is hoping to solve his Batman problem by bringing Robert Pattinson into the DCU. For the record, this is something that Gunn and pretty much everyone involved has denied for over a year. However, this time around, Pattinson gave an interesting response to LADbible when asked about the possibility:

The actor said it was ‘interesting’ to think about, explaining: “I think it would be kind of tough to have this version of Bruce outside of that world. It’s one of the only characters I guess because of the length of the shoots but also it’s such a specific kind of [style], the tone of it gets inside you.”

As LADbible notes, that isn’t a denial. What do I think? You’re asking the guy who couldn’t shut up about The Batman: Part II being canceled, so huge grains of salt here. There’s probably a move being made here, and we could see it confirmed as early as Clayface. If DC Studios wants to sidestep the wall that Sony slammed into multiple times with its Spider-Man villain movies that can’t show Spider-Man, dropping a big Batman reveal/cameo is one heck of a way to do that.

Then again, with the Paramount/Warner Bros. merger going full steam ahead, and potentially bringing the worst person into the mix, James Gunn’s DCU might be over as soon as it began. I’m not going to sugarcoat it: Absolutely nothing about that situation looks good.