#The Batman Batsuit and Batmobile Took a Year to Design

DC fans finally got their first full glimpse at the new Batsuit thanks to the recently released The Batman trailer, and the response has been largely positive. Looking like something that Robert Pattinson’s young Bruce Wayne has cobbled together himself, the suit looks quite different to anything we have seen on screen before. The Batman director offered some insight into the design of the suit and suggests that it will evolve as Bruce Wayne becomes more experienced.

“We have, of course, an incredible costume designer, Jacqueline Durran, and the Batsuit was designed by Glyn Dillon, and they’re geniuses. It was great to work with them. One of the things that’s really important is being able to work with the actors,” Reeves said at this weekend’s DC FanDome event while talking about The Batman.

“Rob [Pattinson] had a very important part in designing the suit in that he had to be able to wear it, he had to be able to fight in it. One of the things about this Batsuit is that it is very practical. The whole idea is that he’s made it himself. And so, we needed to be able to see how it would fit on him and all the ways he could move but also make it look like something that was still evolving. Even the idea of the story, he’s in year two so he’s been wearing it and so every night, he goes out looking for trouble. You look at his cowl and actually see there are gashes in it. All of that detail was an incredibly exciting dialogue between me and the costume designers and then having Rob involved.”

Having Pattinson so involved in the creation of the Batsuit is a great move as, of course, Bruce Wayne is the one who put it together in the first place. This should also ensure that the actor looks comfortable in the cumbersome costume, as he’ll need to be able to movie quickly when he takes on the various thugs and villains that inhabit Gotham city.

Reeves also revealed that the many bat-weapons in Batman’s arsenal, and even the Batcave, were all being conceptualized whilst he was still writing the script, with the design of everything ebbing and flowing in-line with the story. “While I was writing, I actually already had a production designer on and so he would be sending — as I’m writing scenes, I might send stuff to James, and he’s like, ‘Oh, well what about this for a Batcave?'” he recalled. “And so yes, we had to build a set for it, but I think it’s an incredibly original and different set. I think it’s going to be really fun for the audience to discover what version of exactly this Batcave is going to be.”

So much thought was put into elements like the Batsuit and Batmobile that the final designs took a year to come together. “I mean, Glyn [Dillon] came on quite early and we worked in the designing of it, again, as I was writing and the idea of him being able to fight in it,” Reeves explained. “So they started illustrating and I’d say we spent easily a year to do the Batsuit and then to get into the Batmobile, and that, of course, that part’s a dream. The idea of getting to do your own version of the Batmobile, you’re just kind of like, ‘Uh, what?’ That’s the incredible candy, right?”

The level of work that has gone into designing all of these different parts is clearly evident, even from a relatively short teaser trailer, and the dedication and passion from Reeves as well as his cast and crew should ensure the The Batman is something very special indeed.

The Batman is a noir-driven story that picks up with Bruce Wayne around two years into his crime-fighting career. A young Bruce Wayne has become disheartened by the lack of impact he is having on crime in Gotham, when suddenly a series of murders occur at the hands of The Riddler. Lead down a path that will reveal dark secrets about his parents, Bruce is forced to confront the corruption going on in the shadows of his city, all while trying to catch The Riddler before he kills again. Reeves has cited several famous comic book arcs as inspiration for The Batman, including Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s Batman: The Long Halloween and Darwyn Cooke’s Batman: Ego, which takes an introspective look at Bruce Wayne’s tortured relationship with his alter ego.

We have now had several different iterations of the famous DC superhero over the last few years, but Reeves is hoping to bring something different with both the costume and Bruce Wayne’s fractured psyche by making this version of Batman more flawed than he has ever been. “For me, what was exciting was not doing that, not doing the origin, not doing what we’d seen done so beautifully in other movies, but instead to meet him in the middle of this criminological experiment, to see him in the becoming of Batman and to see him make mistakes as Batman and see him grow and fail and be heroic, do all of the things that we associate with Batman, but in a way that felt very human and very flawed,” Reeves said about Bruce Wayne in The Batman.

One mistake that Pattinson’s version of the Dark Knight will not be making is going easy on the criminals he encounters, with the brutal beatdown at the end of the trailer even leaving fans to wonder whether the movie is going to be R-rated.

Robert Pattinson is suiting up as the Caped Crusader, with the rest of cast including the likes of Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman, Paul Dano as Riddler, Colin Farrell as Penguin, Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth, John Turturro as Carmine Falcone, Peter Sarsgaard as Gil Colson and Jeffery Wright as Commissioner Gordon. The Batman is currently scheduled to be released on October 1, 2021, with filming due to commence in the UK as soon as next month following a pause in production. This comes to us from The Batman panel at DC FanDome.

Topics: The Batman, Batman, DC FanDome