The Ringer-Verse - 'The Batman' Deep Dive | House of R

Episode Date: March 8, 2022

Mal and Joanna are vengeance. They are also here to dive deep into Gotham's underbelly and talk all about the latest DC adventure, 'The Batman' (05:48). They give a character-by-character breakdown of all the essential characters including Bruce Wayne (43:58), Catwoman (43:58), the Riddler (79:51), and many more. They also take a look at all of the new shows, spinoffs, and sequels that we may see from this blockbuster (02:16:38). Then Jomi joins to answer your mailbag questions (02:32:02). Hosts: Mallory Rubin and Joanna Robinson Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Social: Jomi Adeniran Additional Production: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The watch is the latest and the greatest in pop culture from best friends Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald. Join them as they discuss TV, movies, music, and much more. Check out the watch on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tramphia, proper training is required.

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seasonal produce and some very tasty limited time flavors. New Whole Foods, Market Peach, apricot, rose, Italian soda. Perfect for a picnic or brunch. As is their trending, man. go, Yuzu, chantilly cake. But if you're on the go, new 365 strawberry pretzels make a great sweet snack. That sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow sale signs storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. It is time. The day of judgment is finally abused. The killer left this with a vet man. Why is you writing to you? And welcome into the ringerverse here on the ringer podcast network.

I'm Mallory Rubin and it is my absolute pleasure to invite you not only to the iceberg lounge, but also to join us on the ringer's nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. Joining me today to dive into the Batman, now that she's finished telling me she has a thing about strays. It's my house of our set in our best riddler extended whisper voice. Working title. Co-host. Joanna Robinson. Welcome to the club within the club.

Let's go 42 below as we dive into this movie. Oh, my goodness, Joanna. we have so much to talk about today. I'm so excited to be here with you to talk about this movie. What a joy. Before we activate our glide suits to soar into our Batman, deep dive.

A few quick programming reminders, as always. The Midnight Boys, Poo! Pugh! Have their instant reaction. To this very movie, The Batman, ever heard of it. Already up for you on the feed. Great Pod on a great movie. Check that out if you haven't already.

Also, Joanna joined Sean and Chris over on the big pick to talk about this movie. And Sean interviewed director Matt Reeves. So check that out as well. In general, the Ringer podcast network and the ringer.com, what a great website. Flooded with content. So much Batman goodness all over the Ringer. Check it out.

Looking ahead, the Midnight Boys will of course be back with you this Wednesday. And then we will be shifting from Batman to pick up. on Friday. We're going to be talking about turning red and we're going to be building our Pixar Hall of Fame.

I can't wait for that, Joe. I'm so excited. I preview. I love turning red. So I'm really excited to talk to you about that. Same. Likewise.

Follow all of that, of course, by following the pod on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Follow us across our various ringerverse social feeds. And of course, bear in mind.

As always, our final reminder which is the friendly neighborhood spoiler warning. Maybe it's the not-so-friendly neighborhood spoiler warning today. You know, it depends which neighborhood you're in and how friendly it is there. Today's podcast will feature plot details from the new movie, The Batman, as well as details from the wider Batman's cinematic and comics canons. So proceed with caution.

Proceed with more caution than our guy Vengeance did when sticking his unprotected chin right into an exploding bomb. Though I don't know. I mean, that was like pretty much fine for him. The granite of his chin deflected the bomb. It's fine. Oh, boy. Joe, we have so much to hit.

Give us those little quick facts in that opening weekend snapshot. Oh, yeah. A baby. This film did really well. As of recording, it earned $134 million domestic, $124 million international for slam bang total of $258 million global.

And that's without China. No, it's not in China. So that's a lot of money. Is it as much as Spider-Man No Way Home? It's not. Spider-Man No Way Home made $260 million domestic alone. But it is the second best opening of the pandemic. And it's the best opening number for Warner Brothers since The Joker.

So if you thought we were going to get less Batman-centric content, going forward, you would be wrong. It's only going to get bad here from here on out. It's also like if you check over on Rotten Tomatoes and I've had my conversations about how I feel about Rotten Tomatoes. But as a snapshot, as a useful snapshot, critics gave this film 85% audience, gave it 90%, which is really close to the Dune split, which was 83% critic 91% audience. And that feels like a good spot, honestly, for like these two, those two movies, which I

absolutely love these huge effects heavy IP movies for the audience score to be that high and for the critic score to be pretty respectable. So yeah, I'm feeling good about this movie that I was like very nervous. I just wanted to do well. I felt very protective of it. How do you feel? I'm delighted that everyone is putting on their batsuits and flocking to see this film. I am so pleased to see the box office yield, so pleased to see the positive response because we'll preview here. We'll talk about our feelings about the movie more in a second. I loved the movie. Absolutely loved it. I'm so excited to talk about it with you today. You know how like sometimes I say, I liked a thing and you go, Joe, I loved it.

When you're like, I loved it. I want to stop you can go like, Mal, I really love it. There you go. So. There you go. I super loved it. Joanna? I super duper loved it. It was great.

We both really, we really enjoyed this movie. The whole Ringerverse fam loved this movie. I'm curious before we talk a bit more about why we love the movie. Are you at all surprised that the response, and of course there's variance within the response is not like every single person who's seen the film has enjoyed it, but are you response, are you surprised that the response is broadly so positive given some,

of the critiques that can befall franchise IP, big blockbuster movies, superhero movies, DC movies in particular, runtime, the very dark, grim tone, those are certainly present here, and not in a way that bothered me at all, to be clear. But, I mean, yeah, does that make it at all surprising that the masses seem to be enjoying this so much or no,

because the quality of the movie is just so high? I mean, I think a couple things. There's obviously always like the built-in hardcore D.C. stands that are going to show up no matter what. And there's the bat fans who are going to show up no matter what. Like, that's just true. I have heard from plenty of people, including in our listenership, that they didn't love it. And that's fine, obviously. But I think I will say this going, and I said this on the big pick, but like going into this movie, I was really nervous.

A, that I wouldn't like it or B, that it would. that it would just feel so long and messy and overstuffed. But similar to my experience with Dune, which was also a very long runtime, I didn't feel like there was a lot of fat you could trim off this thing. I felt like the momentum. I was talking to someone last night who saw it, who I think their rating system was like four or five bat signals, which was like very positive for them. But they were like, I was like, oh, was it the runtime that dinged it for you?

And he was like, no, I mean, the momentum of it is, I personally didn't feel angsty at all watching it. And I think if the response to Dune, which is also a little bit of like an intellectual blockbuster in a way, hadn't been so positive, again, not overwhelmingly positive, but like hadn't been so positive, I'd be more surprised by this. But I think we're in a space where we're kind of thirsty for something like this where Marvel has been giving us delicious dishes, really entertaining dishes. and even in the Spider-Man No Way Home, another tasty meal. This is something a little chewier, and I think that there's an appetite for it right now. I don't know why I didn't have breakfast,

so I think I'm stuck in a food metaphor space. Mel, what do you think? Yeah, you chew on the meat, and then inside of Matt Reeves' Gotham, you chew on the gristle, you gnaw on the bone, you get your nourishment wherever you can. Yeah, I think that's right.

Bat fatigue, not a thing that I personally experience. I'm always ready for a new Batman movie. But I recognize that that is not true for everyone. And while there is no one truth, no universal truth for Batman movies or comic book movies or superhero movies or any type of movies, I think that some of those areas of criticism, whether runtime or tone or anything else, are more. more likely to stand out if the movie's not good. And this is just a high, high, high quality film.

So let's get into our history with Batman. What you brought in terms of Batman fandom and Batman enthusiasm. You already said a bit what you thought of the first trailers. But when you sat down to see this for the first time, what were you expecting? How did it exceed the hype? And how did you feel about the movie overall? I mean, I think we gave our some of our, I think we showed our, cards of our Batman backgrounds for the bat draft that we did last week.

Yes. You're a Burton kid. I'm a Burton kid. I'm a Nolan kid. I'm an animated series kid. You know, that's sort of my experience with all of this. And I had read some comics, but certainly I've been like binging on the bat comics in the last couple weeks to sort of feel like I can understand all the context of this,

which has been so fun. Yeah, it's been great to that then. But, yeah, so that's sort of everything that I bring to this. I, you know, sort of famously did not have a great time with the Snyderverse. That was not my favorite time in, like, DC comic book movie fandom. And so I'm really happy to see a movie where, you know, to be back in a Gotham that I'm really excited to be in. So I think that really informed how I felt about everything. And yeah, I just had, I just, I loved it.

I was, as I said on The Big Pick, I was giddy watching this movie. And it's not like a quote unquote fun movie. But I was like giggling, even at non-jokes parts because I was just so excited to be here. And I felt completely love it. It's how I felt watching Dune, honestly. Like those are the two movies, like the two big movies that I've watched in the last year that I've really felt this kind of like. Because it feels like it engages you emotionally for me, emotionally, intellectually, intellectually, visually, orally, like on all fronts, it's like it's hitting me. How about you?

How did you feel? Did you see it more than once? I'm curious. Yes. Any difference in response across your viewings? You know, I think oftentimes when I talk to you, you often love it even something even more the second time. I don't think I can match the like surprise delight that I felt the first time seeing it where I was like, this rules. I'm so happy to be here.

But I think I was able to appreciate some details a bit more, pay attention to what's happening in the corners. There's so much going on visually. that I think I was able to engage with that a little bit more. But how about you? Loved it. As you know, I am a Nolan Stan, a Nolan versus Stan. Love that trilogy. All three of the movies, obviously Dark Night, most of all.

I love Fantasim. I love the Lego movie. You know, I certainly enjoy the Burton movies, though. Not quite as much as you. I'd be chief fan among among our contingent tier. But I was excited about this movie heading in. I thought the trailers were great.

I thought the very moody aura and vibe was something that to me was a feeling. I was not only not spooked by the runtime, but delighted by it. You know, I love a long hang, as our podcast runtimes might indicate. Love a long, love to luxuriate and a long hang centered on a thing I love.

saw the movie for the first time with the LA ringerverse crew at the screening just a day before it came out and I thought it was just such a treat. Such a treat. Didn't feel too long to me. We'll talk a little bit about the third act later on today. I will say that I thought the two,

the first two hours were like top, top tier. I was wondering if this was going to be my favorite superhero movie ever. I did not think that it quite, quite, quite met. that threshold and didn't enjoy the third hour quite as much. But overall loved it. It's pretty high on my personal Batman movie power rankings. I saw it again a second time this weekend. I saw it with three people. I previewed this for you a little bit, Joe. Yeah, yeah. Who I would say have three different levels of Batman fandom and like a relationship to the story. I saw it with a Batman superfan.

Like somebody who would say Batman is one of my favorite things, period, and stories, reading comics since he was a kid, etc. That's spoiler alert. That's my husband, Adam. Loves Batman. And then we went with another couple. And one member of that party is a big comic book fan, but was like actively dreading. Sitting down to see this movie specifically because of the runtime.

It was just like, this seems ridiculous and like it's going to be more. more of an act of commitment than an act of pleasure. And then the final member of our party is like a huge, huge, huge movie fan and loves going to the theater, loves to sit down with other people and take in a new release and the ritual and shared experience of going to the movie theaters, but is not a comic book movie fan, is not a superhero fan. Everybody likes the movie.

It's this. And of course there was variance within that and, you know, some nitpicks and some notes, certainly. but, you know, we went out for a meal after and we just talked about the movie for two more hours. And that's just a delight. And now here we are set to talk about the movie for two more hours yet again. What a treat. I'm always jealous, obviously, of like when the LA Ringerverse pals get together to see a movie.

But I think especially coming out of this movie because the screening that we had up here, I got to see it like, you know, I think about a week before you guys. But the screening up here was really strict. We weren't allowed to bring a plus one to our screenings. And the social media embargo was up. So what happened is I got out of this movie, I was dying to talk to anyone I could find about this movie. And I had to, like, stalk various people's social media accounts for their sub-tweets because

you weren't even allowed to say you had seen the movie yet. And I started, I exchanged a flurry of, like, voice notes with my friend Dave Chen, who's a podcaster who hated it. So we had this, like, impassioned sort of voice note debate about it. You know, I bothered Sean. on Slack about it. You know, I was just like trying to find people I could talk to about it because it was, it was sort of shrouded in mystery and darkness.

And finally, whenever I'm just so excited to be able to talk to people about it. And a friend of mine who is huge, I think the people who maybe like it the most, maybe I'm wrong, but I think the people who maybe like the most are Batman comic book fans because we're about to talk about this, but there's so much comic DNA in this. And like, I knew that beforehand. But then having subsequently read so much last week and a half or so, you know, every time I get something, I'm like, oh, that's where I got that. Oh, that's where I got that. It's all over the place. And I think it just feels like Gotham to comics fans. And it feels like Gotham to me. So happy to be here. Are you ready to commit on the public record to where you would put this in your personal Batman movie towering game? Not quite yet. I don't mean to be noncommittal, but it's wobbling in the two or three position. That's where it is.

Same. Yeah. I have Dark Knight number one. I assume you have Batman Returns number one. Yes. Yes. And then I'm, I'm, I've got the Batman and Mask of the Fantasim at 2, 3 in some order. I'm torn. Dark Night 2, question mark, the Batman, three question mark. But it's possible that over time the Batman's going to overtake Dark Night for me. Wow. Yeah. Wow. I loved it. I mean, like the, like, he pledgers Joker is undeniable, right? Like, I can't. But on rewatching the Dark Night, I sometimes struggle with the parts of that movie that aren't Heath Ledger. So I think overall, that's why it is a little lower my ranking than, I mean, but it's still minimum the three position that's very high in the history of Bat movies. But Batman, I just, you know, it might be a reason C-Bias talking. We'll revisit this.

I don't know when the sequel comes around. You know, speaking of a Dark Knight and the non-Joker part, it's real. real Harvey Dent, die a hero long enough to see yourself become the villain moment for you here. No, I'm just kidding. I love it. I love this.

Personal power rankings. It's not interesting if we all have the same power ranking. This is why we do this. This is wonderful. Sometimes we have great opinions and sometimes we put Bain in our bat draft and we see what happened.

Here's what I'll say about that. I stand behind the Bain pick, but I have a lot of regret about doing the draft, period without having seen the Batman. It's just not a, I just didn't have the information. I would have taken Zoe way higher than she went. And it would have changed everything for my draft.

That's fair. We'll have to redo it all one day. I can't wait. Congratulations to Sean on his victory. Sean, a member of the Court of Owls here at the Ringer, you know. Sean won the bad draft. I feel good about my second place, though. You should?

I just wanted a strong second place. A lot of Burton fans out there. there on the old interwebs as well. It's great. Great movies. Batman. We'll do it again. Absolutely. All right. You mentioned the comics. Matt Reeves, who made this movie. Huge Batman fan, huge Batman comic book fan. And that is very, very apparent in the film itself. And it was in the walkup to the film. That was one of the things that was really cool and interesting was that Reeves was not shy about his influences. We mentioned this briefly last week, actually, but the trailers even ended with a visual of certain key comic covers,

like directing you where to go, what to look for, what to read, and what's prep. Was that the fandom trailer? I think it might have been the fandom trailer, and that makes a little more sense to me that it was like a DC-branded sort of event. Yeah, yeah. And that one, if I recall the comic tease at the end of the trailer, specifically foregrounded, year one ego and long, and long-hound. Halloween, which are three of the comics that are sure to come up today. You want to run us through

some of the chief comic touchstones and influences on this film? Yeah. So I read all of these and a few more. The Long Halloween, I think, is a big, they were giving out copies of this comic and Daniel Chin on our Bat Draft episode mentioned that it's like his favorite. They were giving out copies of this at some fan screenings. That deals with serial killer in Gotham. So, you know, it makes a lot of sense. Killing on the holidays and this movie, of course, opens on Halloween. Yeah, it's, it's, you want to, by the way, great read, fantastic comic.

That's from Jeff Loeb and Tim Sayle, 1996, 1997 run. And it's a detective story. And the detective noir solving the case, working through the clues approach is so, so, so central to this movie. One of the things that's going to be clear as you run through this list is that there is no one. This is not an adaptation, a direct one-to-one with any prior comic. It pulls from so many different periods and creators and so many different interpretations of who the Dark Knight is, who Bruce Wayne is, who Batman is, and then finds this cohesive sense of clarity for this version of the characters. It's really tremendous and great fun

for comics fans, as you noted. It was really a treat to revisit some of these and to read some new ones for the first time over the last few days. Really a treat. And it's been really fun for me to be like, well, actually, about Batman comics because that's not usually my area of expertise.

But I've had some people come out of this movie and say, you know, they didn't like the, you know, that Selena Kyle is Falcone's daughter or that Martha Arkham is Bruce Wayne's mother. And I'm like, well, actually, that's all in the comics. So, like, you know, it feels a little like Ray as a Palpatine, I think. If you don't know that, you're like, okay, Matt Reeves, everything is connected. But, like, it's, I mean, it's canonical.

Another one that wasn't sort of like a big one he mentioned, but one that I was sure to read was Hush. That's also by Jeff Lowe. You were richly rewarded if you read that before the movie. Incredible, incredible, Hush, Jeff Lobe. I think the role of The Ridler, I don't want to spoil Hush, if you haven't read it or seen a pretty phenomenal animated adaptation that they did. 2019. But the Ridler's rolling on that. We issued a spoiler warning for all of Batman comics.

Okay. The Ridler is the mastermind villain behind everything that's happening there. I think it's germane. I think it is germane to tap into the source text here. But that's a Jeff Loeb, Jim Lee, Scott Williams' joint. And Jeff Loeb has come up twice now. And we should mention that he was one of Matt Reeves screenwriting teachers at USC. So I think that Jeff Loeb, who has made some great comics and also some questionable comic book TV. So I feel mixed in general about Jeff Lowe, but these are some phenomenal comics that he made. It's undeniable. Also, Hush is very famous, I think, for the Bat and Cat love story. Like, Batman unmasks himself to Selena Kyle in that storyline.

And they try to make a go of it. And then similar to this movie, there's a parting of the ways because it's just sort of like this can never be. Yeah, we'll talk later toward the closing stretch of the pod today. about, though not the end of the pot, just the closing stretch. And who knows, much like with Batman the movie, how long the closing stretch will go about the spinoffs and the sequel possibilities.

And I think, you know, hush will come up a lot because of the pervasiveness of the hush Easter eggs and clues throughout the film. The visual splatter of the word hush on the Edward Elliott, Ridler news, viral video release. The clue in the website that flashed at the very end in place of like a more traditional stinger where hush clues

were revealed. So much of what is central to the hush comic is already present in this movie in terms of like theme and structure and even central players. I raise that just to say there's a lot of talk about hush as an influence for a potential sequel. Where I am with that right now is I think we've gotten a lot of hush the storyline, the arc already, but hush the character. Hush the villain, Thomas Elliott. Yeah. We could still. I agree. I agree. And I think that would be, we'll talk about that later, but I think that'd be a really interesting place to go. I also read, there's a sequel to the Long Halloween, which is Dark Victory, which is another sort of like holiday killer comic that I actually really, really liked a lot as well.

And that has the Selena Kyle Falcone mother, father, father, daughter stuff. Year one, obviously. Iconic, 1987, Frank Miller, David Masichelli, comic, game changing for everything that I did for this world. The voiceover that we get in this. The dates. The long Halloween is also, you know, it's Valentine's Day. say Patrick's Day. But this whole like captain's log start date November 3rd, that feels very year one to me.

Our guy, he may be in a year two story, but he is journaling. Yes. He is journaling and he is channeling that Batman year one Bruce Spirit. I think also the, even though we do not get the actual Batman Gordon origin story inside of this film, we just sort of pick up in real time with where they are, the fact. that Year 1 is so central to resetting the Bruce Gordon origin inside of Batman Comics canon really stands out given just how essential their relationship and their dynamic is to the movie and also just Bruce's focus on rooting out corruption.

Like, yeah, I think you could, this is maybe a weird thing to say, but I think you could make the case that some of what Batman does and focuses on in the Year 1 comic is actually kind of like ported over to the Riddler in this movie. It's not a one-to-one, but in terms of being the person who's really focused on rooting out the decay inside of the system. Now, obviously, he is not a serial killer. So I should say that just to be clear. One of the, you know, when we're rereading or reading comics or the text, we like to

every now and then send each other, you know, screenshots, images, key passages. And the one I sent you this weekend was from your one about, about how Bruce is, you know, a creature of the night, nocturnal animal. and specifically a commentary about how he is marginally sane and cannot sleep. And I was like, this is the only time I've ever felt like Batman, you know, the fellow insomniac. Creatures of the Night to quote Lenny Bruce in a recent episode of Maisel. Anyway, I think something that Batman Year 1 dealt a lot with that is pervasive in a lot of these comics, but I think it's really central to this is the corruption of Gotham PD.

ongoing theme, but I think the rot at the core of it is really a year one, uh, inspired idea. Year one gives us like a Gordon origin along with the Bruce origin. It's sort of a two-hander in that way. And so I like watching their relationship be fully formed in this year. Two-hander also describes how Gordon approaches, you know, Baradola. Yeah, well, that's another thing is like when, when the Midnight Boys were talking about, oh, yeah. Well, the Midnight Boys were talking about the tarnishing of the Wayne legacy. in this movie, and I really love it because I think there shouldn't be anything pure in Gotham.

Nothing should be pure. And that's what I love about Year 1, where Gordon ultimately makes the right decision in that he remains uncorruptible, but he makes a fatal error that leaves him vulnerable to corruption in Year 1 with an extramarital affair. And then the Long Halloween is all about Harvey Dent

and, like, all the moral compromises that Harvey Dent makes leading up to the acid in his face. And so I think that that idea of even the best of us have a little bit of rot in us, I think it makes sense for me to put the Wains in that category. There's a couple other books that I read Earth One, Batman Earth One. There's a, as you pointed out, there's a lot of Alfred, this version of Alfred in that Batman Earth One comic. Court of Owls, really fun reads, Scott Snyder's invention, Court of Owls that might be more pertinent to the future, but that was really fun. But the big one, actually for me, thematically over all of this, is one that a lot of even hardcore Batman comic fans haven't read, which is ego that you and I both read.

And this last week is by Darwin Cook, written by drawn by Darwin Cook, and it's short. It's like four-issue, I think book very short. And it's, it is a wild book. It starts with, for folks who are men, it starts with, you know, a traumatic event for Bruce. I mean, that's a Wednesday for Bruce, right? But like a traumatic event for Bruce, some guy who he's kind of trying to save, commit suicide. And he's just sort of like after revealing that he has killed his family members. Right.

Very grim. So Bruce is like, Bruce is like, should I be doing this? And what follows is a conversation between Bruce and that. Batman split, like a very golem-s-meagle conversation, where Batman is drawn as this, like, demon, like, of the venom to Bruce Wayne. This hooking uncontainable form. Just awful. And, like, there's so much in this comic.

I wrote down, I tried to pull a Mallory, and I wrote down some quotes that I might read for you right now. So the first one, the one that I put in our notes is the city I've given myself to threatens to crush me with the weight of my commitment to her. Like that's big mood For for Bruce in all of this Also I love the description of ego In marketing material I think Or maybe it's on the splash page On the title page it says

A psychotic slide into the heart of darkness I mean if that doesn't make you guys Want to go out and pick up this book I don't know what else What will Yeah this is just a phenomenal read You know examining the beast within It is like deeply

Deeply compelling visually But it is also profound. It is a deeply introspective and psychological tale. And that is obviously you don't need to hear Matt Reeves talk about the movie to pick up on that. That is like embedded into the core approach

and central interest of the film. But when you do hear Matt Reeves talk about it, that's recurring. You know, his draw to the psychological aspects of the character, to the humanity at the heart. not that he rejects the mystical or fantastical elements that are, of course, embedded in superhero storytelling as well, but that bringing the human and psychological aspects to the fore is what will ultimately unlock his version and vision for the character in the world. And like Bruce and ego confronting like the cost of his choices, the cost specifically that his work has wrought,

the difference between heroes and villains, that feels. very directly mapped on to this movie, to the Batman, because so much of Bruce's... I don't even know if we should call him Bruce, given how little we see Bruce and how often we see the Batman, which is something we'll talk about, but given this Batman's arc across the movie, that vengeance to hope path that he has to not only inspire others to travel and walk,

but that he has to find his way down himself, is so firmly anchored in assessing his own history, his own family, his own city, but also in the example and understanding, seeking to understand the example that he is setting for others and that it is not the one that he thought it would be or that he set out to put into the world.

It's fascinating. When we meet Bruce at the beginning of this film and he's like emerging through the shadows and beating these criminals sense, there's there's a couple lines from ego that I think really encapsulate where Bruce is where you say from vengeance to hope right he starts in strong opposition to the city right and so there's a quote from ego where he says take all the pain and all the rage and we would share it with those who deserve it I am vengeance living in opposition to the city

and we descended on this city like an unholy instrument of vengeance relentless as a shark blacker than their dark hearts, right? This is just like, this is Bruce taking his pain and spreading it out and using almost, you know, like Pattinson has talked about this, this idea of like the reason that Bruce goes out and fights these like street level criminals every night, it's like a trauma loop. It's like a Westworld trauma loop of him like revisiting, you know, what he wish he could have done in crime alley. That's like a not a new idea.

But this idea that Matt Reeves is so interested in that is reflected in the ego comic, is this idea of like, Bruce Wayne does this thing where he puts on this bat suit and he goes out to fight street level criminals. That's a weird thing that Bruce Wayne does. And in response, we get the Rokes Gallery. The Rugs Gallery crops up in response.

So he roots out the street level criminals, and this is another quote from ego, but he nurtures a bigger threat, power of mad geniuses. And so Matt Reeves has talked about this film as not an origin story for Bruce because we've seen the Wayne's die enough times, but an origin story for the penguin and the catwoman and, I mean, the riddler, and to a certain degree, that these bizarre characters are a direct response to a depressed billionaire putting

on a bat suit. And I think that's so interesting, you know? I think that that's also, it really taps into one of the reasons that this version of Gotham, this version of not only the central... Cape Crusader, but all of the characters around him, as you're noting, feel so fully established and alive one movie in, which is incredibly hard to do, no matter how long that movie is, it acknowledges a central tenant in reality, right? Cause and effect are very rarely that neat.

Life isn't linear. You know, there are cycles and this push-pull, and we get caught in loops. And the example that you seek to set, you lose control of. And then we get into the old, you know, Tony Stark, we create our own demons idea, which is, on the one hand,

a trope, you know, a recurring area of interest across not just superhero stories, but stories full stop. I mean, that's at the heart of the examination of mankind and life, right? But it is inextricable from Batman's canon.

Inextricable. That is like central to, the history of this character because that rot, that crime, that festering decay is so ever-present around him. And it's actually not interesting

if Bruce Wayne or his parents or Wayne Enterprises or any aspect of that family at the core of the story is just like holy and godly. That doesn't work

inside of this universe and this world. It all has to be soaked in the rain. with the eye black dripping down the cheeks, right? Everything is touched by that despair. And that might sound really like hopeless, but I think what makes the movie so poignant, actually, is the acknowledgement that you sort of have to recognize that hopelessness

before you can push your way through it. And not everybody is a billionaire like Bruce Wayne. Not everybody lives in what appears to be like Canterbury, which is incredible. What a tower, my goodness. Love a steeple inside of my home. Not everybody has the resources or the intellectual prowess to develop that eye lens technology or even just a frankly luxury of choosing to spend their time that way. but everybody can ultimately make the decision to assess the forces around them, attempt to better understand them,

and then attempt to better understand the way that they operate within the systems that define their lives. And the movie is interested in all aspects of that. The people at the heart of the structures, the structures around the people, and the way that those things definitionally inform each other. And that's why I wouldn't have minded if this was five hours, honestly, because I was riveted throughout. Well, I think, and the point that I think Chris made really well on the big pick episode that we talked about, Batman, was I almost want it to be longer, I agree with you, in that I want it to be like maybe a five-episode miniseries because there are characters in here that I would love to give even a little bit more space to you. Andy Circus's Alfred or a little bit more of the penguins. Let them have a little bit more space to breathe, but you're trying to balance an equation. You know what I mean?

And so, like, I know that the original cut of this movie, I think, was like four hours, actually. Give it to me. Yeah. It's really interesting. But I think what's really important to all the smart things that you just said is this idea, the reason why so many bat movies start with. with the origin story of Bruce Wayne and the death of the Waynes and Crime Alley

and all that sort of stuff is because Frank Miller made such an indelible impression with year one, because a Batman who's just figuring out how to bat is more interesting. Well, I mean, and then the later grizzled, beaten down by life, older Batman is also very interesting. But the middle I got...

A personal favorite. Yeah, but the middle I got this Batman is not as interesting dramatically, you know what I mean? And so I think what I really love about this year to Batman is we're skipping a lot of those origin beasts that we're so familiar with, but we're still in I make a lot of fuckups Batman. And that's really interesting to me. And also the, it's simple enough to boil it down to a trajectory of vengeance to hope. But I mean, I don't know that we've seen a Batman go through such a radical emotional philosophical transformation as we see this Batman slash Bruce Wayne go through. The idea of like he starts it looking, looking, searching in the corners of the night for the evil of the city so that he can punch it and ends with looking for the good so that he can save it.

And it's such a beautiful trajectory, such a believable trajectory given what happens on this film. It all coherently makes sense. And I think that's why it feels so satisfying, why it's lingering at the top of the list for me. Yeah. Because it feels so satisfying that way. From moving out of the literal shadows to. feeling at last after having to previously put the sunglasses on to mask his eyes, right, that he can look up into the sun and new dawn, you know?

Okay, we're going to get to the third act question, but I cried when he lit the flare to lead the people out of the flooded thing. Visually, just gorgeous, by the way. I mean, I was like, here comes the light. We're out of the shadows into the light, Bruce. I love it. I'm just curious. Do you have a favorite comic Batman?

comic in general, did you have one before this recent reading burst? Do you have a new one now? I think the one that I would recommend to most people is ego, just because I think it's so interesting and it's going to be like, and it's a short, like, little, little read. And it's so interesting thematically. But in terms of like a hang that involves so many members of the Rokes Gallery and is really fun. I think the long Halloween is just, is just really fun in that regard. What do you think? That's great ones. I think my favorite Batman comic ever is still The Dark Night Returns, another Frank Miller jam,

86 four-issue arc, and that's old Batman. That's beleaguered Batman. That's been through it all, Batman. And so it was actually really fun to, like, fall so fully into these stories that are largely oriented around, the early days of Bruce. I think from this batch that we just highlighted, Ego was the one that gripped me the most.

Obviously, your one is just a classic and Long Halloween is a top tier on my personal list as well. It's just a lot of good Batman comics. I mean, a lot of these are... A lot of these are detective stories. You know, Dark Victory is one, Long Halloween. You know, Court of Owls, a really fun mystery. story. So, yeah, I mean, he's the world's greatest detective for a reason. But I think, I think

the way in which Matt Reeves leaned into, we're going to do a serial killer mystery story. So smart. Well, on that front, the detective influence, the serial killer influence, run us through some of the other touchstones for Reeves outside of the Batman canon. Yeah, he's doing like, so he's doing like 40s noir, obviously. And that's, That's the origin of Batman and himself. He comes out of 40s noir, Selena Kyle being an iconic femme fatale sort of character. But then also 70s noir, like Chinatown or French Connection,

and then like 90s serial killer genre. So like the Fincher World of Seven and Zodiac or Silence of the Lands is obviously very much evident in here. And then I didn't notice this until I watched some of our favorite folks who do the Easter egg breakdowns. But there's a lot of John Carpenter's Halloween in. here, including like the way that it opens with the POV of the killer and you're in the killer's eyes literally and stuff like that. There's a bunch of Halloween, uh, 1978 references in this. And I think that's all, all very interesting. I am not a horror movie watcher as previously established. I am, I'm just afraid. I'm a coward. So that was lost on me,

the Halloween parallels. But I will tell you that I jumped and gasped. Steve, who was sitting next to me can attest that when we first see Ridler lurking inside of Don Mitchell's apartment, I was genuinely terrified. I mean, there's some scary, spooky moments in the movie, though, nothing is scarier than the very heavy, loud breathing. I hate loud breathing. That was the scariest thing in the whole movie to me. And the way that his breath is, like, fogging up his glasses like that.

And it's just really fun because, like, not fun. ha-ha, but like you don't know whose point of view, you're real, like, you can suspect that it's the riddler. But then later, because we see Bruce do almost the exact same thing, you're like, who's snooping on who? Oh, it's both. Okay. Yeah, our hero, much like our villain. Kind of a creep. A little snooper. This episode is brought to by Borishead. What if we told you the taste of deep fried turkey is now available at your local deli? Well, Borishead just did that. bursting with flavor perfectly seasoned with that indulgent taste that usually means pointing your whole day around it, presenting the Friars turkey breast only from Borshead.

The backyard tradition now available behind the counter. Visit your local deli today. Discover the craftsmanship behind every bite. Bor's Head committed to craft since 1905. Who's the mustache with the broken nose? The guys that got into it with the Iceberg Lounge. What are you saying Kinsey Moon Knights for the Penguin? Let's get into our character by character and also, you know, archetype by archetype. Deep dive here because we have a lot of points of reference and comparison from Batman past.

Let's start with our Batman. Let's start with our Bruce. Let's start with our Bat. Robert Pattinson, discuss how did you feel about his portrayal? Where does he rank for you among your bruses, among your Batman, among your combined Bruce Batman? I mean, it's not fair to put him on the Bruce spectrum because he's barely Bruce, if at all, Bruce.

That's something that I was like, okay, first of all, I love that he has the dark makeup when he takes the cowl off because every single goddamn Batman has had dark makeup around his eyes. They just pretend that it's not there. But like, to bring that in gives us, of course, emo Batman. But it also, because a lot of times when we see him as quote unquote Bruce, he's got the eye makeup still in his face.

And so he's still Batman. Like he's not Bruce, hardly at all. Definitely not billionaire, never billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne. So I would rank him as far as bats go. He might be my number one. And it remains to see in any subsequent films we get how he might do at playing the other side of the coin. But I thought he was extraordinary. I thought he was really incredible.

He's always been a very emotive actor, even when he was a sparkly vampire in films that both he and I hate. But he's always been phenomenal. He's done, of course, a ton of phenomenal work since. He's a really interesting actor. And I think he was just perfect casting for this. What did you think? I thought he was tremendous.

Yeah. Absolutely unbelievable. You know, he was a... strange and slightly confounding Bruce to me at first, but in a way that I ultimately was really taken by, you know, because I think that that was really like part of the point to upend our expectation of how, as you said, the billionaire playboy would need to behave,

or even more germane, like how the duality that is so central to Batman's stories even manifests, you know, the Midnight Boys, Van and Charles, they talked about this really, really wonderfully on their potta on Friday. There's not really a duality yet for, and you and Chris and Sean talked about this. So the big pick, like there's not a duality yet for this version of the character. And we get that made literal in the script when the riddler in that incredible conversation sequence at Arkham. is praising his mask and talking about how incredible it is and saying, you know, but this is your real face, right?

But it is so inescapable throughout the film that the only way he can find any comfort or peace in his own skin, making his way moving around through the city in his life, is to put on. the bat suit. This is insane costume. Yes. It's to drape himself, to cloak himself in that purpose given form,

that purpose made literal. And, you know, you see the label of his journal and it says Gotham Project. And we'll talk about Thomas and Martha

in a few minutes and the way that his parents are deployed in this film, which is fascinating. But I really liked thinking about that parallel and then ultimate point of differentiation where when this version of Bruce is setting out, the Gotham project is his version of renewal. It's his way of

continuing, as he says to Alfred, like, this is the only thing. This is the family legacy. There is nothing else that matters to him. And we have our human reactions when Selena is turning left at the end and Bruce is turning right and, like, You know, she says, do you want me to stay? Oh, you're already spoken for it because the bat signal is in the sky. And he has not gotten to the point in his life yet. Not only not where the duality becomes the challenge, but where the duality is something that he's ready to embrace.

There's a singular intent, a singular pursuit. The Batman is who he is. And it's also, I mean, so Bruce Wayne is such an interesting tool in Batman's arsenal, the way that he can deploy Bruce Wayne as we've talked about elsewhere. And he does that here. He says, okay, it's time to go be Bruce Wayne because he's got to go to the funeral. The funeral might appear. But he's not, but he's not Bruce waning.

He's just sort of like cringing, hoping no one notices him, trying not to talk to anyone. And Bella Real, who's, you know, our mayoral candidate here, comes up to him and is like, you know, your parents did a lot for the city with their money. Like, maybe you could do some of that. And I think of this also as an origin story for Bruce Wayne in that regard. Like that this idea of him, when we see him, again, this is why I really did love the third act. Maybe it could have been done differently and more quickly. But when we see him make the decision to go and pull Bella and the boy out of like this is a decision for him to engage in the city that way. And he says it overtly, sort of on the rooftop monologue when he's talking about hope and stuff like that.

that. But this idea, Reeves does all these really interesting things to make it so clear that there is no distinction between Bruce Wayne and Batman in this movie. We already talked about the eye makeup. So, like, he's always Batman. You know, the fact that Wayne Manor isn't outside of the city, it's in the city, which we've never seen, I think. And, you know, and Reeves is like, the building that is usually Wayne Enterprises, we made Wayne Manor. And so, like, there's no separation. There's no, like, Batman drives on the city. And then he gets to be Bruce Wayne. And, you know, and he's like, his house. He's just downtown all the time. Like, that's, that's just where he is. And there's this other quote from ego that I thought was like, it's almost like an infection. There's this line from ego where Batman says to Bruce, you, you prefer to call me Batman, but the reason you can never escape me is my name is fear and I live within you. And this idea, this thing that Bruce says throughout about the fear, the fear that he's infected with because of losing his parents, the thing he says to Alfred about like, I don't care if I die, but I can't lose another person. and like that.

Never thought he'd feel that kind of fear again. Yeah. That fear around Alfred, the fear around when he sees Selena in trouble at the end, like all of that. I think, you know, that's what has him cloaked

in this bat persona at all times. I think it's really interesting. I'm really glad you mentioned the fear because I think that helps highlight why I thought he was such an incredible Batman. And I agree. I think he's my, favorite Batman.

We'll see over the course of future installments how we feel about the characters as it evolves, the portrayal as it evolves. But I thought that the way he moved, we'll talk in a second about his intro, like the first time we see him, but just the way that he exists in his body, in his skin, in his suit,

in the tech that he has developed and cloaked himself in, I thought the armor, the styling of it was so fascinating. because it almost reminded me more of like Mandalorian armor than prior bat suits. You know, there's this like heavy kind of encasement. What is necessary?

It's not really in this version of this film, the gadgetry and the wizardry and the shock in awe of the advancements. It's blunt force and the ability to stand up and move through. the face of blunt force, right? And so to your point about fear, one of the things I loved about his portrayal

is the way that he emotes from underneath that mask and inside of that suit, which is an incredibly difficult thing to be able to do. It's actually one of the reasons that we and so many other people who talk about Batman stories

tend to differentiate and say, well, who do you like as Bruce and who do you like his Batman? Because it's pretty interesting. Like, that's why we'll love to, and I, you know, I love the Christian Bail Batman, but like, the difference. The difference between Robert Pattinson's bat voice and some prior bad voices is like pretty notable to me.

He sounds like a human being who is navigating the world around him. And then we have not seen the moments where Bruce decided to become Batman, the earliest days of the origin. But you get a moment like climbing. you know, grapple, grabble hook, grapple hook shooting himself up. What's the opposite of the word repel? Raising? I don't know what grappling hook tech terminology and vernacular is.

Shoots himself up to the top of the police precinct and has the most human response, which is to be absolutely terrified. And so the fear manifests in his eyes when he thinks the Riddler is about to unmask him, that that's what the truth unmasked video is about, about to reveal that he is Bruce Wayne. We see the glisten in his eyes.

We see the fear in this literal, visceral sense atop the tower before he activates his glide suit. We see it when he, after being a, as Vann, rightly noted, bit of a dick to Alfred. When the first thing he says to him when he wakes up is, he lied to me instead of, are you okay? I love you. But the fear and the vulnerability that he allows himself to feel.

he walks around saying, I can't let myself be afraid because that would be weakness. But the real strength is the way that fear helps guide and define him. I can't go more than four pods ever, Joe, without bringing up the old, you know,

Game of Thronesism. Can a man be brave if he's afraid? Like that idea, right? And that's the only time, Ned tells Bran, that you can be brave. Like fear and bravery, fear and the decision to actually are ultimately forces that define and guide each other.

And that's really, really present here in a way that makes the performance from Pattinson just feel like a real achievement. I can't wait to see what he does next. I loved him. I want to talk about, okay, so two things really, one last thing I want to say about this, is that, and we've talked about this before,

is so much that helps Pattinson be able to perform as Batman, is that half cowl that he wear. that compared to a lot of other cowls that cover almost the entire face. Let me just say this. My favorite new extension of your hair watch. Oh, lip watch, chin, jaw watch. Yeah, cow watch. I feel very strongly about superhero lips and what they do.

I mean, Kilmer, you know, incredible. Anyway, point B. The cow helps, but I want to, let's dive into this first introduction, right? He comes out of the shadow. You hear him before you see him. Very Eli Roth coming out of the tunnel in Inglorious Bastards where you just hear the clang of the bat before you see him, right? And here's what I love about that.

You know, the Midnight Boys said so much about the scene that is so smart. And I agree with everything they said about like his fighting style and how he's, you know, it's not so clear that he's going to get out of this alive. But we know he is because it's the movie's called The Batman. So there isn't Reeves is something so smart. There isn't a lot of tension about whether the Batman is going to survive this. There isn't a lot of tension around that. But what he does is he puts this kid in this gang who is only half initiated, right?

He's only got half the clown makeup on. And I feel immediately worried for this kid because this kid is expressing a lot of doubt and fear. And you want to be like, get out of this gang kid. Like, I don't want you here. I want you to be safe. So all of a sudden, there are such enormous stakes on this because, like, Batman, could, like, beat the stuffing out of and or because of friendly fire, whatever, various gang members might—Batman's not going to kill anyone.

We know Batman doesn't kill. But, like, they might kill each other, whatever. I'm so worried about this kid. And this is, like, a grim or darker Batman. Is this kid that I'm emotionally invested in? Is he going to be okay? And he is okay. And I just think that one small choice is such a smart thing that Matt Reeves did as a writer and a filmmaker to put tension into the

this scene because just watching Bruce beat the shit out of a bunch of gang members is not the most interesting way to meet him. But in this whole like, here's something worth protecting and we're very scared for it, I thought was a really interesting choice. I completely agree. I loved the intro. I like to that you have the sort of odd, but sort of perfect juxtaposition of seeing the fear that the bat signal inspires and

instills in others. We see the thief in the drop mask who's so trepidious when he sees the signal that he backs his way into getting hit by a car, the graffiti

artists and spray painters who are terrified that he he's lurking, that he's looming in the faraway recesses that are just out of sight. And then when he actually does emerge at the train station, the leaders of this clown gang are mocking him. Like, we've just been primed to think that everybody is afraid, that everybody is waiting for him to come disrupt them. And then these guys are like, you look kind of like a doofus. Like, well, get a look at this guy. And it's recurring in a way throughout the film because you get later, they just

like instantly iconic penguin, what is this, you know, good cop, bat-shick cop line. Like, you have to have those moments that call out the absurdity, which we feel organically and innately as we watch him. And because of the grounded detective noir focus of the film, so much of the movie is just Batman walking into rooms, walking through the precinct, walking through an apartment. And it is such a, it is such a strange dichotomy to see him next to regular people in the world. And then you remember, well, this is the only way that he feels normal. This is normal for him.

So I love that. I love the way that you continue throughout the movie, even as the story evolves and the character is evolving, to get those moments where he is emerging from whatever the back cave around him in that moment is, whatever his cocoon of darkness is. Like the elevator emergence at the iceberg lounge is unbelievable movie making. I mean, that is just incredible with the flashes of light where he's like popping up and moving forward as we see him. Our pal Eric, you know, made the excellent Rogue One Vader emergence comp in his video. And it also made me think of the prison barge sequence in Mando season one. the Mayfeld episode, because there's like those flashlight sequences too, where Mando is just suddenly a lot closer to the screen and the foe than he was a second before.

And I love the way that those tricks of the light were deployed in the art of making the movie because the trick of the light and the use of the shadow would be so central to how Batman actually behaves. So I just loved all of it. And we should say a reason that Eric and some others made that Rogue One comparison is because the cinematographer on this movie is Greg Frazier, who was all. also the cinematographer on Dune and on Rogue One. And so, like, that, like, his play with light and shadow has been, you know, a part of his entire career. Absolutely. Absolutely.

One of the things I wanted to note here, because we're talking about his actual intro, I loved what wound up being the non-intro, because the actual opening scene is Ridler, right? Yeah. And he's looking into what we soon learn. is Mayor Mitchell's apartment. But the first thing that we see is this little boy dressed up in red,

dressed as a ninja, sword fighting, play acting, and then his parents come in. And when I first saw a young boy with his parents, clearly in this luxurious, refined, elegant home, clearly wealthy, you're like trained

when you're sitting down to see a Batman movie to wonder if that, that might be a young Bruce there with his parents, Martha and Thomas Wayne. Wayne. I had the exact same. I had the exact same response. I was like, and that was my first giggle of the movie. And there were many that followed.

Playing with our expectations like that. There was something funny about it, but I thought it was hilarious at the same time. I was like, this is perfect. Chef's kiss to this choice. I totally agree. And, you know, that gets us to let's talk for a few more moments just more broadly and specifically about Reeves's decision to, make a year two movie to make a detective noir film. You've,

you've chatted about this a bit already today and what you liked about skipping certain aspects of the origin, but just spend a few more minutes on this because it's so key to the version of this movie that we got and what made it work so well. Did the timeframe and that genre and tonal approach, what about the time frame choice and the genre and tonal approach worked

so well for you. I think, I mean, it's similar to how we got to Spider-Man Homecoming, you know what I mean? Where I think John Watson, Kevin Feigy at all, were very intelligently, like, we don't need to see Uncle Ben die again. Like, that's not what we're going to do.

The audiences have spoken. And I think, you know, the... It's enough to hear Tom Holland's Peter say when you can do the things I do and you don't, the bad things happen. They happen because of you. Yeah. And you know, you know. And so, to meet Bruce here, we don't need to see the Wains die.

Like, we've seen it. It's a meme at this point. You know? Like, it's just, I think Matt Reeves is so smart to not do that. And, yeah, and so to put him in that year one, year two, detective mode, to make the tech a little wonky.

His flying squirrel suit is, like, hilarious. and terrible, but it's okay because that's sort of part of it. I just thought it was, I really loved all that. I love the grounded nature of this. I've seen some people complain that they like miss either the campier Batman.

You know, I love a campy Batman. Like they miss the campy Batman. Or they miss the like wilder, maybe even supernatural villains and stuff like that. So like, you know, there are some people who say, I don't need this to be more down to earth.

I don't need this to be grounded. But I just think all of the choices that Matt Reeves made around this to bring it back down to that. And to bring it, like, you know, it's similar to what he did for the Apes movies where I'm a big fan of his, you know, he directed the second and third installments of the recent Plenty of the Apes trilogy. And like the work that he did with, there's a lot of similarities between the apes and his movies and this Batman sort of like going around like. Not saying a lot, but so we have to let the emotions come through somehow otherwise. And it does. It works for all of it. So I don't know if that answered your noir year two question, but I approve this message.

How about you? Yeah, I loved it. I was thinking about something that Reeve said to Sean on the big pick when he was explaining his vision for the movie, but also acknowledging how. many Batman movies there have been and how hard it is, but also how necessary it is to try to do something that feels distinct. Here's what he said. After there being so many iterations, you also have to prove to an audience that there's a reason to revisit this. And so this idea of leaning into a very point of view-driven story that was going to be a world's greatest detective story

and that we were going to take not an origin tale, I knew I couldn't do that. That had been done so many times really well, too. We couldn't possibly see Martha's pearls on the cement again. I was like, well, what if we did in early days Batman who still had a lot to learn, who's still at a place where you could take him and put him through the crucible of this experience of trying to solve this mystery that could turn very personal and that the movie could be an awakening for him. I thought, well, we haven't seen that, that level of this kind of intimate relationship to not Bruce becoming Batman, but Batman being Batman. Batman. Genius! Because you get all of it, right? You get that sense that you were at the beginning

of his journey with him and that you were going to be able to witness his arc, see that growth and progress, but you don't have to play all of the familiar beats. The only part of that, I guess, more traditional origin story that I missed or felt I wanted a little bit more was just seeing him making things. Like I was eager to spend a little more time in the Batcave, see him working on the Batmobile, see him designing the lenses. But that was honestly it. Like, I'm very glad that his parents, who we can talk about it now, like, were deployed in the film the way that they were and that we did not get, as he said, the clatter of the pearls again. We've just seen it too many times. So it's a difficult, it's a difficult trick to make you feel that you're in the early

days without showing you every single early day. Right. And you make a really good point in our notes here where, you know, the way in which the wanes are deployed throughout this is that they're ever present because of the Riddler's obsession. We see footage of them, but it's not the flashback. And similarly, the way that the boy is deployed, the mayor's son, as you mentioned, when we start with seeing this boy in this, in this, you know, fancy home, we're like, oh, that's young Bruce Wayne, of course it is. It's not.

But the way that Bruce is constantly looking at this kid throughout, and he never says anything about it. It never says, like, when I look at him, I think of myself when I lost my brain. He doesn't need to. Like, we get it, right? And so the way that he's just, like, staring at him at the funeral, the way that he saves him at the funeral, the way that he saves him in the third act. And it's all about, like, yada, yada, Bruce, like, if he can save this boy, can he save himself, you know, like all this sort of stuff.

It's all there, but it's not hitting you over the head with it. It's just like elegantly there. We don't need to see young Bruce Wayne fault. Why do we fault down, Master Wayne? Like, we don't need to see that. We've seen it. But we have this boy here so we can think about little Bruce Wayne. And I think that's brilliant.

Absolutely brilliant. I just like to stay for the record that I'd like you to moving forward, commit yourself to doing a little more Michael Cain voice work on this pod after that because that was special. I have a better impression. I just, it's a, you know, that was lovely. That was wonderful. Yeah, I just think this was so smart. This feels like one of the real key ingredients

and why the movie worked so well because it wouldn't make sense to overcorrect too far and say, I don't want to do the pearls again. I don't want to show Thomas and Martha being gunned down. And so they won't be a part of this story at all. Like, then Batman isn't Batman. I mean, this is, This is a part of the fabric of his life.

At some point, you pull too many threads away and there's no quilt anymore. There's no tapestry anymore. But rearranging, reordering, zooming in on a different part of that needlepoint design is a really deft and elevated way of recalibrating rather than totally reinventing. because there is a certain expectation about what a Batman's story will or should be. And I think that this strikes a really compelling, kind of hybrid balancing note of giving us those touchstones

and that sense of familiarity while doing something that felt fresh and that like Reeve said to Sean in that quote gives the audience that reason, that reason to revisit it. And with Thomas and Martha, like, I don't think, and part of this is just because the nature of the reveals over the course of the movie, we get the, you know, everything we learned about renewal and Thomas's mayoral campaign and the connections between Thomas and Carmine Falcone.

And, you know, the fact that Thomas saved him in that great little moment heading into the funeral about the Hippocratic Oath and Falcone's response to that, like, he can't suppress the chuckle because to him it's like it is actually just like it's farcical that anyone could think that would be the reason. and why. And then the way that Falcone tries to manipulate Bruce into believing who, first the Ridler through the viral video warps exactly what happened with Thomas. And then Falcone attempts to leverage that to suit his

and an ongoing agenda. And then what Alfred reveals. And it's like, I think that inside of a mystery, sometimes it can feel like it's wave after wave of new information and that's effective because we're, we feel like Bruce a little overwhelmed and a little at sea, but also, like, felt apt because every character does have their own point of view, but also their own agenda, right?

I'm fine with finding that excuse for it. I do think, I think that is one casualty of whatever directors cut edit reuse had to do, that the scene where Falcone tells one story about Thomas Wayne and the scene where Alfred tells the other story, back to back. And I'm like, I needed a little bit of air. between those two revelations. I agree. Yeah, that was a little like whiplash-inducing, but more broadly,

I like that two things were true at once here. Reeves is upending this idea and expectation that the Wains had to be like saints, that they had to be gods in their city, that they had to be infallible, that they never made a mistake, right?

That their record was pristine. While also making sure that eventually Bruce and we the audience understand that they were not bad people, that ultimately they were human beings, right? And that that is, again, more interesting than if they are just these poster parents for like a certain kind of like ideal. The fact that Bruce is working through and Charles talked about this beautifully on Midnight Boys, I'm getting a little bit emotional actually thinking about it.

It was really lovely. The fact that Bruce is. is learning more about his parents and confronting the different aspects of who they were and who they can continue to be for him is part of life and part of growing up, not just for Bruce Wayne or Batman.

And I really, really liked and appreciated that the movie walked that line between saying they're not just perfect people who exist frozen in amber in a young child's mind, they were more complicated. They were more complex. There are things about them

that you, the audience, unless you've read certain comics, and Bruce in this film, did not know, but that doesn't make them bad people. Well, and I think it's so beautifully complicates a narrative that Bruce holds at the beginning of this movie

and that is often shot through the comics, which is the idea of this, like, that Thomas and Martha Wayne were, like, were like the heart of the city. and when they died, you know, the city died, and that's where all the corruption comes from. And the fact is so much more complicated than that, in that they're not rotten to the core or whatever,

but, like, you know, there are skeletons in the closet. They're humans that make mistake. There's a lot of that in both Long Halloween and its sequel Dark Victory, where there's this, you know, Harvey Dent suspects Bruce Wayne of being the serial killer. Bruce Wayne suspects Harvey Dent of being the serial serial killer, of being the serial serial killer.

They're both wrong. And Harvey says, I just want you to know that I make mistakes and I try not to make them twice is something that he says. And like, obviously that does not pan out for Harvey Dent. But like this idea of like, I make mistakes. I made a mistake. And I'm learning from it. And like we're all, all of us in Gotham fallible.

But what it means is that when Bruce starts this film, he's on this mission to just beat down the evil of the city. that took his perfect parents from him. And what he finds out later is that it's all gray, you know, various shades of gray. And so, again, to the earlier point, don't look for the evil, look for the hope in the city, you know. It's a great point. And I think actually one of the other reasons that it lands so well is because it seems like something that's bringing Bruce further away from his parents. But ultimately, it's bringing him closer to them because.

And, you know, to be clear, like you mentioned this earlier, a lot of this is. is in, exists in comics canon, you know, Batman Earth One, Martha's Arkham family ties, Thomas's mayoral campaign, that Alfred head of security,

not just like Butler caretaker, etc. This is very different though from what we are used to seeing in Batman movies. And so it does feel like a real, real departure in that sense. And I think like to that renewal,

Gotham Project parallel idea, the fact that Bruce thinks that he is, as you just said, preserving and protecting, this mission that his parents stood for and sought to enact is actually something he's going to be able to do more fully

and recognize more wholly when he understands that they also had to make choices to protect the people they love, not just to fight for this idea. You know, if we can like channel our inner Heimdahl, right? Asgard isn't a place. It's a people. And like, the same has to be true in a way for Bruce and Gotham. And it was for Thomas. Like, he didn't, this idea that he cared more about his mayoral campaign in politics would have been very upsetting to Bruce, but to understand that

he had this instinct to protect his wife and his kid. Well, what is Bruce doing ultimately? He's trying to protect his family legacy too. And that idea of, like, the Bat family that I think has its roots in like the 50s. And like when the Comics Code Authority, it was like, let's get the killers out of these comics and make them cuddlier. The ongoing concept of the found family, the bat family, the family that Bruce tries to grow up around him to replace the like, yeah, I mean, who doesn't? But like to replace what's missing from his parents.

Again, like the use of the kid in this movie, like I'm not saying this kid is going to be Robin or anything like that. But when I was reading Dark Victory, there's a really striking page in Dark Victory because Dark Victory, like this movie, does not want to belabor the origin story of Robin. So we just get like a, we just see like a rope break and then his parents are on the ground. And then Robin's in anguish and standing up in the audience in the circus, it's like spotlight on Bruce, looking at the kid, looking at his parents. And it's just like, that's that moment for Bruce where he's just like,

I'm going to crowd as much as I can under my bowing and protect it, you know, however I can. I think it's really, really moving and beautiful. And I think this movie gets into it without being like, here's Chris O'Donnell to do some laundry. I don't know. I do enjoy watching Chris O'Donnell do laundry, though. It's true. And, you know, to go back to that, like, arc from Vengeance to Hope idea, when we think of the way that Bruce, the recurring motif of skis. Scars throughout the film, you know.

Selena asks him at one point, who are you under there? Like, you just covered it in scars. And he sort of says, yeah. And then later he's talking about scars. And he says, you know, if we survive them, they can transform us. And I was thinking about like our guy Boba Fett

and coming out of his back to tank. And then the whole exchange about those scars on the inside, Joe, they take longer to heal. And so something like the way that he looks at Don Mitchell, boy at that young boy in the apartment, at the crime scene, at the funeral, in the receding into the waters that are flooding, not Madison Square Garden, his healing scars, whether that boy becomes Robin or not, that would be really, that would be fun. His healing scars, the way that he is thinking about his scars as not just blights, not just signs of his trauma or what he has

suffered through, but as the way that he has moved forward and healed. will allow him to, like, potentially be something for that young boy and to help him find a way to heal his scars too. Do you wish that when Selena had asked him, are he just scarred under there? He had said something like, do I know how I got these emotional scars? No, I wanted him to say, let's take our clothing off.

I made my parents go see Zorro. That's how I got these emotional scars. You're pretty good of that. Beams Selena, should we talk about the cat? Any other Batman bat points that you want to hit on before we... I'm sure we'll talk about it throughout, but let's just talk about how horny we all are for Zoe Kravitz's catwoman. Let me just say a couple things. I love the Midnight Boys and I respect them deeply and I could sense them trying to be very respectful in their horniness for Zoe Kravitz, Selena, Kyle.

But we are women. And so it is less problematic for us to talk about how hot, how fucking hot she is. No, but like more seriously. Oh, are we done? I wasn't ready to move on yet. No, we're going to talk about the sizzle in the fajita as much as we can. But more seriously, I want to talk about horniness in this movie because this is something we talk about in the Marvel movies, which are like pretty asexual.

And even in the DC movies where, like, I honestly. what do you think is the horniest thing before this in any comic book movie? Movie or story? Because I think if we expand to story, it's easily peacemaker. Which was...

Which features our guy, Chris, singing karaoke into a vibrator, memorable sequence. Hmm. Horniest... But is that horny? Because there's a difference

between, like... That's... That's, he's... I mean, like, because you could talk about Star Lord talking about, like, you know, don't take a black light to my spaceship. But I don't find that very, like, horny. That's like, you know. Yeah.

Blue humor. It's a little different than like, holy shit, what am I watching, you know? Love to work, blue. Hornyest superhero movie. That's really good question. Batman returns. It's Batman Returns, obviously. But with, like, a slight nod to whatever Uma Thurman is trying to do is poison ivy.

but like improbably not causing any sparks with George Clooney. But like, yeah, it's Batman returns. And like for me, because Batman and Catwoman are such like fetishistic characters, it is wild to me that even like Anne Hathaway and Christian Bale who are very charismatic, hot people, those, that Selena, I have no complaints overall about Anne Hathaway, Selena, but that wasn't like a like horny sexual tension performance, you know, what I mean? That was like sultry, you know, like

femme fatally, but it wasn't like as you say, holy shit, I want these people to take off their clothes. But like, Catwoman and Batman are going around the city and these like skin tight fetish costumes. It should be as horny as this movie is. So let's

just give our appreciation to Zoe Kravitz. She's sublime. I mean, she is just exceptional. In general, I am huge Zoe Kravitz and Meyer, as you know. And I thought that she was absolutely phenomenal as Selena Kyle and as Catwoman. She was electric in this movie.

And everything you're saying is correct about how horny this movie is, how palpable the spark and sexual energy and chemistry between them was. And I think that that is really to the movie's credit given that we have to ask, after seeing it, whether this particular version of Batman might be a virgin. Like, Bruce Wayne is not seeing anybody, is not interacting with other human beings. So is this guy having sex? I'm not so sure. We got a mailback question from Minnesota Fats.

Has the Arpats Batman ever had sex? He never goes out except at funerals and walks away from Catwoman Lake is nothing. Who wouldn't argue that he walks away like is nothing? But 100%, I do think that this weird. recluse probably does not smell very good. Doesn't Alfred ask him to take a shower? Alfred asked him to shower. That's because they have a business meeting that he wasn't aware of.

But it does imply that he would not shower unless told him. Absolutely not. And is often the case, Alfred's like, hey, who's that solitary female you ever interacted with? Is she coming over for dinner? Like, who is she? 100% a virgin. The same way, I mean, if you've never watched Robert Pattinson talk about Edward Cullen in

twilight. Please do yourself a solid. It's the funniest thing ever. But he's got some great quotes about how he thinks Edward Cullen is like a weird hundred-year-old virgin. And he's like, this guy's so weird. And that's how I played him like a weirdo. Yeah, I do think that this, this Bruce Wayne has never had sex 100%. Boy. Well, I hope that that changes in the sequel. And I really wish it had changed here. Because I got to say, there were a few times where I came pretty close to shouting, just fuck, inside of the crowded movie theater. And they come pretty close a few times. I mean, they're the way, like, physically that they interact.

I mean, the sequence in the Mitchell home. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. If you want to revisit this, this is the clip that they played on Fallon, so you can go watch it and hide off on YouTube if you want to. But, like, when they... Don't think I haven't. When they fight and she, like, wraps herself around him,

and then he throws her down the table, and they're basically... fucking with their suits on. There's like grunting and grunting. Yeah. And then he like pulls her into the shadow to try to be like quiet and they're like panting against each other. Like are you kidding me? Very special.

Very special bit of movie making. I also loved when she kisses him for the first time and then walks away. And he has just the, again, it's such a physical performance in the way he carries himself. Like you could sort of feel like he's sitting there thinking, boy, I hope I left him. enough room in these bat pants for this massive boner that I definitely have right now. I mean, I don't know. I don't know how he doesn't turn left at the end. I get it.

He's vengeance. He's going to be hope. He's got a city to fight for. Girlfriend has got them. I mean, maybe he should consider an open relationship so that he can have more than one. Speaking of, okay, so Selena, her mission in this, and which I really appreciate it, this should always be true of a catwoman. that she has her own agenda that she's working and sometimes it aligns her with Batman and sometimes it doesn't, right?

And so her mission here has to do with her friend Onica, blah, blah, blah. So the question is of the word friend, right? She calls her baby. Like when she's looking for her, she calls her baby like 20 different times. So my question is, do you think that this catwoman is canonically bisexual? Or do you think they're just pals who call each other baby and share high heel patent leather boots? Interesting. So there was definitely something like intimate about the way that they interacted, which, you know, we only get to see through Batman's creepy peering eyes.

But there's a tenderness and, you know, a real level of like intimacy and care. I think that that could speak to any number of relationships between them. Zoe Kravitz has said that she, her read on the character is that Selena is. is by. This is not a comment about Zoe at all. I think if that's her interpretation, that's great. And if this is the case, I think that's wonderful. It's open to interpretation based on the way it's presented in the movie.

I think that if she is by, it would be great if that were an overt part of the story and that that were clear and not something that we had to speculate about. Yeah, exactly. It's similar to when Thor Ragnarok came out. And they're like, by the way, his character's by. And we're like, okay. And then in the sequel, they're going to, like, we're going to make it explicit. So, yeah.

Yeah. Absolutely. You mentioned Selena having her own agenda and how crucial that is. I love that balance in the movie because she, when they are together, it is so crackling and sizzling. But she feels like so fully her own person. She has not halted for a moment by the Batman or his ambition or his agenda. I love the ways that they realize they can. help each other in a way that is more like fundamental than going from being like actual tools, right?

Like you are an eyeball. I will put this lens on so that I can make my way down to 44 below into a level of investment and care that builds really organically across the film. But there's never a moment where she's going to like pull her punches or change the way that she would conduct herself because Batman wants her to. And sometimes the net result is painful to see like he doesn't want her to try to kill Falcone, doesn't want her to use a gun, but it's not up to him, right?

It's up to her. And so we, of course, don't want her to commit a murder, but I did think it was important that she wasn't swayed, that she remained really staunch in her conviction. Even a scene with like Kenzie up atop the tower where the bat signal is, Batman and Gordon are like, do things our way. Well, we're going to tell you how this should go.

She's just like, I don't give a shit. This is that why I'm going to do this, right? Good thing I've got nine of them, and then that kick and then that leap. It is just flawless. And it's, as we've just outlined at length, so important to establish exactly who our Batman is. But one of the real strengths of the movie

is that we get this really full sense of self for the other characters quickly too. We get big reveals with Selena. Like, we learn. in this massive moment that Valcone is her father. We learn about her mother being murdered. We learn about her history, her trauma. So there are key plot points that hinge on learning about Selena,

but so much of it is about that feel, right? And that sense of how she carries herself and what she wants and why. And Zoe was just, like, incredible, just wonderful. I loved watching her. I really hope that she's in the next movie. A lot of characters are around at the end of this movie. and could be there in future movies, and there's always a compulsion to introduce new characters.

But her most of all, I really hope that she is going to be a part of whatever comes next. What did you think, this was something that Sean kind of teased on the draft pod, and I had no idea what it was in reference to because I hadn't seen the movie yet, about the amount of the expisional weight that she has to carry, like how much of the exposition either comes directly from her explaining who a person is or what the dynamic is inside of the lounge between these crime bosses. Maybe it's her tossing a cell phone.

We get to listen to a very long voicemail that reveals a key plot point. Definitely my least favorite part of the movie. Yes. But how does you feel overall about how much of the exposition fell on her shoulders? Yeah. I mean, well, honestly, if you're Matt Reeves and you're sitting at home, you're like, I have so much exposition. I don't know, you know, like, am I got to.

I have Paul Dano do another like viral video of explanation of the Wains or am I going to allow you the pleasure of looking at Zoe Kravitz while you get this information looking at her drinking milk or whatever. I want to I want to zoom back to the sexuality thing to follow up on what you said. So on the website the pedestrian, they asked Zoe Kravitz and she said that was her interpretation. They also asked Matt Reeves. And he said, in terms of her relation with Onika, I spoke to Zoe very early on. And one of the things she said, which I loved, was that she's, she, meaning Selena, is drawn to strays because she was a stray.

And so she really wants to care for these strays because she doesn't want to be that way anymore. And Anika is like a stray and she loves her. She actually represents this connection that she has to her mother who she lost, who was a stray. And so she wasn't a stray anymore. He added, Matt Reeves added, so I don't think we meant to go directly in that way, but you can interpret that way for sure. She has an intimacy with that character, and it's a tremendous and deep caring for that character more so than a sexual thing, but there's meant to be quite an intimate relationship between them. And we should say, I mean, because we haven't already, that that is an iconic part of Selena Kyle in the comics. That, you know, there's this character, Holly, who I believe was played by Juno Temple in the Nolan movies.

Like, you know, she is constantly sort of protecting younger, maybe more vulnerable women around her and stuff like that. So that's part of it. To your exposition point, again, I would rather look at Zoe Kravitz give exposition than anyone else. So that's part of it. It worked for me, as did, honestly, the Paldano Riddler Exposition sequences, too, because he has a lot of them as well in terms of revealing the corruption at the heart of the city. It was all pretty compellingly handled. Yeah, that's, you know, that was my read broadly of Selena's character here. And as you note, that's consistent across the board.

And I liked the moments where Bruce in his, like, ignorance is really judgy and, you know, appalled that she would try to make a score and take some money and this and that. And she's like, first of all, this is what I'm owed, right? Because this fucker is my father. And he never took care of me. And this is mine by right. The Iron Throne is mine by right. That's funny. It gave me a very, like, Han and Leah and Luke.

where he's like, you're in love with Luke, aren't you? She's like, yeah, he's my brother. Great stuff. Bruce's jealousy around Falcone is also out of the comic dark victory, where he's like, why are you so obsessed with Falcone? And she's like, twisted. Leave me alone. That's great, absolutely great stuff.

I mean, yeah, I love that. He's like, you didn't say you had a relationship. Relationship. He's like, I have to compete with John Totoro. I'm never going to measure up. How can I? I love all of the multitudes of this version of Selena and Selena in general as a character. You see this badass who can scratch your face, right?

We get the Falcone scratch here, that iconic moment from year one. The way that she is able to go toe to toe in physical combat, her savviness in the pursuit, the way that she is mission-oriented, goal-oriented, purpose-driven. but has this tenderness and this heart, this desire to protect, because as you're noting, like, she wants to be able to provide for others the thing that she didn't have, the thing that other people didn't give her. And she and Bruce are very similar in that respects, even though the key is that they have these parallels that bring them together and that allow us to see this commonality between them,

but that they both really travel their own individual arcs and follow their own individual pursuits. It was really well done. This is my new favorite cat in the bat. It's not really close for me. I know for you, you have a number one pantheon cat in the bat that can't be touched. But they're my new number one. Great stuff.

You know, it's a close second for me. The, you know, if Zoe Kravitz wants to give us a meow, I might consider it. But until then, something that this movie is interested in that I'm not even sure the Occupy Wall Street Nolan movie is interested in is this idea of Bruce's privilege. You know, I think you talked about the 1% of Gotham City before, but Salina directly saying, like, whoever you are under there, I know you grew up rich. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, she's a young woman of color who grew up scrapping and he's fucking Bruce Wayne. And she's just like, a reason our worldviews are different is because of this. Like, you can afford to sit up on your high horse in a way that I've never been able to.

because of how we grew up, you know? Judge people for choices that you've never, ever had to consider making. Yeah, that was great, that part. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection

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Speaking of choices that people make, Paul Dano, the Ridler. Let's talk about this performance and this character, a really new spin on movie Ridler, at least. I would say even Comic Ridler. I don't think we'd quite, we've never had this.

This is a, This is a new, a new iteration of the Ridler. It's really harrowing and memorable. Where's this performance and where's this version of the character generally sit for you? How did you feel about it? So we have three cinematic or on-screen riddlers to talk about, right? There's Frank Gorshens Ridler in the 60s Batman. There's Jim Carrey's thing that he's doing.

And then there's this. And I think this is as redefining for the character. as Heath Ledger's Joker was for the Joker. And I think that we are going to see, we might, you know, or like you think of, Jim Rosh's Ridler on Harley Quinn, which is an incredible performance, the Harley Quinn animated series, incredible performance. The Ridler has always been kind of a kindler, gentler villain, like a softer, less threatening.

He just wants to have fun. He just wants to, like, tease Batman, blah, blah, blah. a hush is a little different in that regard. But for the most part, that's who the riddler has been. And so this Zodiac killer riddler, which is so smart because, of course, like, if you think about what the Zodiac killer did in sending ciphers to the Saracosocon Chronicle, and you think about the riddler, like, there's such an overlap there. It's such a smart direction to go for this. But, like, this is a, you know, this is, this is Kevin Spacey and Seven. This is terrifying.

And I think casting Paul Dano, Paul Dano, who is good at being creepy and soft at the same time, brilliant casting, I think. I thought he crushed this. I mean, is he wildly over the top? Yes. I loved it. I thought it was incredible. Yeah, I thought he was tremendous. It's so unsettling and deeply, deeply unnerving.

That is the case throughout. and then of course that sensation builds exponentially for us and for Batman when we realize that he thinks

they're partners he thinks they're doing this all together he's not working to take down the Batman he's working to earn his respect

and adoration and to build a sense of collegiality with him which is like so upsetting and you know we talked about

earlier when outlining some of the comics, like how that idea is not new. You know, what does Batman inspire in others? But that parallel, like, mirror image aspect to this storyline was deeply, deeply upsetting. And I think really important because it forces our hero to ask

how the decisions that he's making and the choices that he's making or impacting other people, but also because, you know, it brings to the foreground, like something that I always like to think about in these stories and that we talk about often, which is, you know, what ultimately distinguishes the heroes from the villains. And it's not just that Ridler says these things to Batman here. It's those littler moments of symmetry and parallels. We already mentioned the binocular, you know, peep in through the windows. But even think of like when we see Bruce moving through Gotham in the early part of the film before we see him in the bat suit for the first time, and he's got his hood up and a face covering on. And he's moving through in disguise. Like there are

all of these different parallels between them. And what is the point of distinction? Well, sometimes for Batman, it's going to be something really like precise and literal. Well, thing that sets us apart, the thing that makes me different from the people I try to stop, is that I have a limit, a line I won't cross, I won't kill, right? And then ultimately, though, it has to be something broader. It has to be the thing that we talk about a lot, which is intention. And that's how you get when that is upended or when any character takes the time to sit and examine that idea, that's when you get some of, I think, my favorite and some of the most interesting comic book stories.

Like we could cite, not as dark as this, certainly, but something like Captain America's Civil War, where the Avengers are just, like, debating amongst themselves, well, what gives us the right, actually, to make that decision?

And if we think that we can, and Captain America, someone who we hold up as the ideal, has, you know, the gall of the say, the safest hands are still our own, on the one hand, we're like, he's right. And on the other hand, you can't help but pause

and think about how dangerous, as Rody says to him, that idea really is. And so to see Riddler and Batman interrogate that here, I loved. And I think especially, I mean, like, obviously, so we grew up with Batman stories and we grew up with this idea of a vigilante. And we were always like, you know, there's a similar exploration of this in Zach Snyder's treatment of Superman, which is just this question of like, it's dangerous to have someone with godlike abilities out here making their own moral decisions about who deserves, punishment and who doesn't, you know? And so when we look at something like a place like Gotham where the police department is so corrupt, and as we as a nation and as a world are thinking about police force and corruption and you don't get to decide when excessive force is required or not, there should be codified rules for that, how would we actually feel if

there were a Batman in our city, like, you know, using what may seem like excessive force? Like, I don't, you know, we don't need to get like too politicized here, but I think it's a question worth, I think it's a question this movie is asking. And especially as it puts, you know, these two orphans in parallel with each other. Absolutely. Like, it's the, the Who Watches the Watchman idea, right? And you don't want the answer to that to be the Riddler or the Joker or the Penguin or Carmine Falcon. You don't want the answer to be any of the villains. But you don't want the answer to be. no one either. Like there has to be some apparatus in place to hold somebody to account, but then how do you ensure that's not Thunderbolt Ross and the Socovia Accord?

So when the stories are interested in examining those ideas, I think it's really compelling. And, you know, you mentioned that they're both orphans, and that's obviously central to the eventual reveal that we get from Edward, that we get from Ridler, that renewal had failed. that Bruce was the orphan that everybody focused on and doted on and talked about this poor boy who had lost his parents. And he says, in essence, but you're not an orphan if you grow up in a tower. And I think that that's also, you know, wrong, right, in a limited view because it totally diminishes the pain of that loss and that grief that Bruce would feel. But the way from his perspective that the systems that were propped up and the pursuits that were propped up as being in place, and designed to protect and nurture and secure

were ultimately warped. On the one hand, yes, I agree. Like, I don't want to diminish Bruce's pain. But on the other hand, this Bruce and this movie, I think, is very, very much engaging with this. This Bruce has created an I'm alone. I mean, if you read the comics in a bunch,

as we have the past week and a half, there's so many times when Bruce says, I'm alone or I am vengeance, right? And like Alfred's right there offering, you know, family to him. And Bruce rejects it. He's like, are you a Wayne? When the nurse asks, like, does he have any family that we should notify? And Bruce says, no, when Alfred is in the hospital.

And Bruce says, no, we fill in the blanks in our head. Just me. Like, you're his family, Bruce. You know, and Bruce has rejected that because he has created this narrative for himself. He's all alone. And I think he's moving out of that at the end of this movie. but that's part of his journey that he's on, of realizing that he does have family and his family's, Alfred, for now, you know.

Absolutely. And it's interesting, too, because Bruce is very shut off emotionally in that respect. And so when you think about the diverging paths for these two orphans and the way that they have made their discoveries inside of, again, this detective tale, and the riddles are so, like, it allows you to kind of play along throughout the movie. And it's one of the reasons that I didn't feel it was too long and that it moves with this pace of each new greeting card, each new reveal. who is the riddler, who is this Edward?

He's a forensic accountant, right? And so he is able to make these discoveries and scrawl his findings inside of these ledgers as much as Bruce is scrolling his reflections and his recounting into his own journal. It's funny, and like a big reaction to this movie has been, Bruce is not a very good detective, he's not very good at his job.

And I'm like, I don't know, he gets a lot of those riddles right, like right away. He does crack the riddles. And it feels like, yeah, he does a lot of things wrong. And one riddle, the El Rata a lota we can talk about. Great stuff. There are things that he gets wrong, but he cracks, he has the answer to so many of those riddles right away. But you just have to think about these two people being so sympathico in the way that their brains work.

Yeah. Yeah. It's dismaying. and something first is going to have to spend some time thinking about for sure. What did you make of the Q and on of it all? The way that the Ridler builds his following, the way that his followers are then deployed in the final act, once he is already away in Arkham,

has allowed himself to be captured at the cafe. I think I don't understand why this plan doesn't make sense to people. Now, to Jomey's point on the Midnight Boys, 500 followers is not that many. But maybe in a concentrated Gotham, it's enough. But I think his plan makes a lot of sense to me. He's allowing himself to get captured. He's martying himself to rally more people to his cause.

That makes a lot of sense to me. And then he also said, you and I would be safe here. So wherever, I don't know if he's exactly in Arkham yet, whatever holding Sally's in, wherever he is. Yeah, he's got the Arkham label on his jumpsuit there. At that point. Okay, so wherever Arkham is, it's above the floodline. Like, he's going to be physically safe. Watch from there. Yeah. As he plays God. Yeah, as he plays God and Old Testament floods the city to build anew from there.

Yes. That plan makes, I mean, is demented, but logistically, it makes sense to me. The part about him, yeah, I agree in terms of him allowing himself to be captured for that martyrdom. For the fame. Like, he talks about how he wants to be remembered, how somebody who felt invisible and forgotten and lost and cast aside his whole life would want this, this glory and recognition in his twisted, warped perception of what those things are that could not be denied. Also, just practically, once they think they have him, now he wants Batman, you know, he's so disappointed.

You're not as far as I thought you were when Batman hasn't seen the whole picture, hasn't yet lifted the carpet and discovered the bombs, by the C-Wall. The carpet ball map. I mean, in his, you know, in Riddler's defense, like the carpet, Tucker was the very first murder weapon. It was, it was right there all along. Sure. But then people won't be on high alert anymore, you know, the people who would be trying to stop him.

So that all made sense. In terms of the actual, I did have like a little bit of, and this gets from Riddler to just the general kind of third act question of it. I did feel that my, I was like less into the flood sequence and the, the garden sequence than everything that came before and even, and also the scenes after just because I don't know. It didn't feel like it moved was kind of quite the same pace as the rest of it. And also I did find myself thinking if he's so hung up on taking down the corrupt and making those people who have been in this position of privilege and power feel that sense of fear, as he says, then attacking this position where they are tracks.

But he's taking out so many other people in the city that he would feel like a sense of allegiance with and a sense of camaraderie with. And I found myself wondering a bit because like the flood is comics canon. That's Batman's zero year, right? Ridler flooding, Gotham. I found myself wondering if there was a little bit of a reluctance to lean in maybe as fully to not only the chaos, the desire to spark the chaos

that spawns from that, but like to avoid any potential Razagool League of Shadows, Batman begins, we need to purge Gotham kind of corollary. And if maybe there was like a little less time, spent on that aspect. Not saying that's what Ridler wanted, but even just on what he was seeking to achieve

with the flood, then we otherwise might have gotten. Yeah, I mean, I think the idea of, like, I'm going to wash the city clean, purge Gotham, I get it from Riddler's point of view. Could all, could that third act have been tighter, probably for me, the emotional,

and the, I mean, so Matt Reeves, when talking to Sean about this, was saying that, like, the Q and on January, January 6, Capitol riots stuff was an accidental corollary. It was already in his script before it happened. And probably if it had felt even closer to what actually happened in our own capital city, that he would have felt compelled to change it because he wasn't trying to do.

It's the same way that Occupy Wall Street is actually kind of accidentally in the Nolan movie. So he said he didn't want to, he wouldn't have wanted to do anything that felt like exploitative of. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But that he was interested, he called it the insidious effect of that, like, mob mentality that can build online, right? That was a potent modern-day critique, I think. And I think those copycat, like, riddlers, and especially, like, given that one of them is, like, the guy we already saw at the funeral early on and stuff like that, like, you see how these citizens of Gotham get their noodles cooked by, you know, this conspiracy theory, some of which is based in truth that, you know, is whipped up around them.

I don't know. I found it really chilling and really effective. I think this idea of what Bella Real represents and how they're trying to attack and destroy exactly that. I think all of that is really interesting. I do want to shout out our producer, Steve. This was filmed in the Thompson Center in Chicago. So I think if we're going to compare it to a real arena, we have to compare it, I think, to the Thompson Center. With nothing but respect to Steve, I think that it is clear that they're going for an MSG comp.

Even if that is literally where it's filled, they want to invoke Madison Square Garden. Do they not? But isn't like Gotham supposed to be more Chicago than it is New York? Isn't Gotham supposed to be Jersey? Isn't Gotham supposed to be? I don't know. Because Gotham is us. Gotham is uproclos are like New York and New York.

I mean, Gotham moves across the... I thought Metropolis was supposed to be New York and Gotham supposed to be Chicago. That's what I thought, even though they're across the river from each other. While we're fact-finding, I have a question. Because I've seen a bunch of people say that the guy is from the funeral. And, you know, you observed in our notes that the two guys, the one who's talking next to Bruce and then the other one who tries to kind of make his way in a ring, the green already, we see the horde outside with their signs touting what the riddler is doing. But I've seen a bunch of people say that the guy who's unmasked at the end is the guy from the funeral who was talking. Isn't that clearly a will from the Game of Thrones pilot? Am I losing my mind?

The guy who's unmasked to me, I was like, that's Will from Game of Thrones. from beyond the wall. Anyway, yeah, I think that, that even though this was not actually written to incorporate the events from January 6th, clearly the social critique that this is tapping into

about extremism and the megaphone that the internet and social platforms can be for people to spread their message of hate and dissent. plot and plan right there in ultimately plain sight is very, very disturbing and felt really heightened and germane based on

where we are as a society today. Any other Riddler points while we're on our guy here? I don't think so, but I'm excited for him to to still be around. And that, I mean, that, You wanted to talk about how we interpreted Bruce Wayne,

because there's been a lot of debate about this. What was your read on that, on whether he knows that Batman is Bruce? Yeah, I mean, I definitely think there's no ambiguity about the confrontation at the end that he doesn't know who Bruce Wayne is. Yeah, that was my read too. That we're supposed to, along with Bruce,

be afraid that he's going to unmask him in that moment, but the twist is that he doesn't know. I think some people who are very familiar with the hush comic an animated film adaptation, or I think more directly the comic, might have interpreted otherwise because in that comic, he does know that Bruce Whitney's Batman, but he's not going to reveal it to the world because what fun is a riddler riddle that everyone knows the answer to. So like, that might be a lingering ambiguity, but I, you know, I don't think this riddler knows that Bruce Wayne's Batman.

Yeah, I agree. I just, I don't know if it, I guess it is open to interpretation. That's one of the things that's interesting about it. But if he badly wants to kill Bruce and wants the Batman to be his partner... To celebrate with him. Yeah. Then unless this is a part of his, you know,

like fracturing psyche in the way that he compartmentalizes, I don't know how we would reconcile those two realities. So I think it was, as you said, we were meant to be afraid along with Bruce and then that real twist. It was one of my favorite scenes in the movie. I thought that sequence was really incredible. I think that the riddler could figure it out from here, though.

That seems reasonable. Hey, wait. Bruce Wayne was the one guy I couldn't kill. Where was he? Oh, wait. I feel like Paul Dano, like, ate his weaties, did some guided meditation, came to set that day, and just decided to, like, drink every single person's milkshake all the way up. Oh, it's fantastic. Love when, love when Paul is involved in some sort of milkshake drinking.

Great stuff. How about Penguin? What an unbelievable Colin Farrell performance. and version of the penguin. I will just say that if he does not win an Oscar for the penguin in this movie, I hope that he wins an Emmy for his continued, continued work as the penguin in his impending spin-off show. He was so good.

He was so good. Goyle! I didn't kill no goyle. He just killed me. I loved him. I love Colin Farrell. And anything he's ever done, I think he's extraordinary. in Fantastic Beasts, which is not even a movie that I love.

I think he's extraordinary. I think his wand work in that movie, I talk about all the time. The way that he whips his wrists around and the wandwork of that movie, incredible. Colin Farrell is genius. There is this, an episode of Pat and Oswald's podcast, a friend of mine turned me onto this, where he was talking about if he were to play any character in a Batman, anything, it would probably be the penguin. And his wife, Marith Salinger, was like,

well, like, they're doing a new Batman. Like, don't you think, like, you know, and he's like, oh, no, no, you know who they cast? Someone as close to me as possible. Irish smoke show Colin Farrell is playing the penguin. And so my question, along with the information that we know that, like, Jonah Hill was initially circling actually both the Ridler and the penguin role, given how invisible, because he's incredible, given, and the prosthetics are incredible, given how invisible Colin Farrell and is in this role, is he taking jobs away from. The Patton Oswald's and John C. Riley's of Hollywood in doing this performance. I was, I mean, I think like almost everyone else when this was revealed, like the casting and then when we saw the trailer, I was like, wait, what? I mean, he's literally unrecognizable. And it's just strange to make that choice. But now it all makes sense. It's all clicked. Like it's, I feel like I've, Bruce has said, what if we only used those letters on the key? And now I can see. see the word drive so clearly on the cipher.

Like, it's just all clicked into place after seeing this movie. He was sensational. He was having so much fun. And he has to be menacing. You know, you've got that moment of the rise when he calls out Falcone, when Falcone, who we'll talk about the second is, you know, being brought out into the light in this moment where he goes from the right hand to the heir apparent then, right? For that crime syndicate, the car chase.

which is, you know, much more a Batmobile showpiece than it is, a Penguin sequence or a Batman sequence, and it was just heart pumping and thrilling. That was a real, maybe I'll only see movies in IMAX theaters, like, turning point in my life, because just the sound and the scope of the visuals during that sequence were just, like, incredible heart-pounding. He's got the humor with the, you know, that bat-shick cop line I already mentioned, his breakdown of how they've, they and Riddler have failed their Spanish. lessons with the Rada-Lada

L-N-Lah sequence. The way that he waddles like a penguin when they leave him tied up. I mean, he was a source of an immense amount of comic relief, given that he's barely in the movie, actually. And then he's at the heart of this rot and these nefarious, noxious, anxious forces

who touch a lot of the characters who are in this movie, and then a lot of the sprawl of Gotham that will manifest in future installments. So I just thought, I just thought he was so good. I loved him. I can't wait for his show. Yeah, I mean, I think it would be a little like if you're about how little screen time he has, if it weren't, we're going to talk about like the fact that they're playing do a spinoff

show for him. I think at the end of the day, I'm going to take a hard stance and advocate that like we not put fat suits on actors at the end of the day. However, that being said, Colin Farrell is incredible in every single second in this film. So that's fair. That's where I am. How about Falcone? Equally incredible, John Totoro. Amazing. So good. So good. chewing every stick of furniture and scenery and insight, just so good. Falkoni, it's so interesting. My friend Jeff Jensen, late of Entertainment Weekly, and then also a writer for like Watchman and other things,

he had this tweet over the weekend about how much he is always bored about the mob element of a Batman story, that he never wants it. It's not something he's interested in. And it's so interesting because, like, I don't, I'm trying to think about, I'm trying to really balance. I feel about it, but a lot of these comics that Rees is drawing from are mob heavy. The mob stuff came

in through year one, Frank Miller. Like, that's where this stuff comes from. It's really doubled down in Long Halloween and some other things. And so if these, like, if these Jeff Loeb stories are something that Maverie was super interested in it, it makes sense that the mob is at the, at the heart of this. I think to Turro as Falcone, Falcone is, because they pronounce it both ways in the movies, is a... Going with Falcone, since that's what they say most, but yeah,

so we've got some varying pronunciations over the... It is predominant, but I think it's... His part is surprisingly large versus Colin Farrell surprisingly small role, but maybe that's just because

they were trying to obscure some of the, like, Selina Kyle connections or whatever the case may be. But the way in which that brings in like Chinatown and a bunch of other references to this,

I just thought it worked really well. I thought his scenes with Robert Pattinson were really good, both of the funeral and then one-on-one in the club. That Falcone, Thomas Wayne Connection is comics canon, like all of that. I thought it worked really well. But again, it's like if you're talking about a balanced equation of the

movie in terms of characters and how much we use and how much they don't, this is a surprising variable, I think, introducing this. Yeah, I was really shocked by how big of a role and how central falcon was to the story. I did not expect that from the trailers or the marketing. So that was a really fun surprise. And, you know, Terturo is just like amazing as always. I agree with what you said about the scenes between him and Bruce. I loved the scene when Bruce went. And like, you know that you can't trust what you're hearing. But there was this like paternalistic quality. You know,

what do you what do you hoping to to hear what do you hope in to get out of this conversation what are you hoping to learn but also like something kind of condescending about it that felt like it tapped into the different aspects of how he would seek to manipulate the people around him he's obviously central to the story beyond just his interactions with Bruce and of course everything with Selena because he's at the he is the rat right he's at the heart of this actual like plot reveal that part i i i wasn't like as compelled by and as I mentioned already, I thought that the part where we have to watch our main character stand around and listen to a voicemail for multiple minutes was probably the most inert portion of the movie. I like that he was

so central. You know, you do start to feel at some point how crowded maybe the story is, but also I think one of the things that Reeves clearly seems drawn to is how vast Batman's rogues gallery is. You know, how stuffed that coterie is. And I actually like when the movies incorporate numerous figures and we don't just like focus solely on a one-to-one, which unless there's anything else you want to say about Falcone, it probably is a good way to talk about Joker for a minute. I want to say one quick thing before we roll to my guy Barry Keon, which is, however I felt in the theater watching Batman v. Superman with the Martha reveal, I felt the opposite about the satisfying riddle. in which the penguin, the Batman, and Falcone could be the answer to what is a rat with wings. I think that's a clever riddle that Rees came up with for this movie. And I supported it.

It's like super satisfying when after the whole, you know, bring them out into the light sequence bears its fruit. And then we get the arc of exchange. He's like, but we, you were, we did it together. You know, I couldn't have done that part. You helped. It's like, you realize you've been complicit. Honestly, that's probably why they called him Falcone instead of Falcone, because it should be Falcone if he's Italian, but they wanted to get Falcone as close to Falcon so that they could land their riddle at the end of the movie. All right, let's talk about Barry.

Yes. Okay, so Matt Ruse has said a couple things. Number one, Matt Ruse has said that originally they filmed and they will release. I think not even, you don't even have to wait for whatever Blu-ray might come out. He said in a couple weeks once people have had a chance to see this. Maybe when it hits HBO Max. But there's a scene between the Joker and Bruce, a very Silence of the Lamb scene, a very actually long Halloween scene.

And like in Long Halloween, Bruce goes to visit Calendar Man in Arkham to get insight into who might be the holiday killer, right? And so that he had a scene where Bruce goes to get information from this guy who is the Joker, but not the Joker, played by Barry Keon. And also he has a very elaborate backstory as to why the Joker is the way he is. It's not scars he was given. It's not acid. It's like a congenital thing that he was born where he's perpetually smiling. And that has like warped his mind. Sort of similar to what Joaquin Phoenix's characters dealing with in The Joker, I would say.

So that gets cut. And so Matt Rieus has said, so then I thought about just cutting him out of the movie entirely. I'm going to cut that scene, which he said, you know, just really slowed down the momentum of everything. If I'm going to cut that scene, why I keep this other scene? His explanation for why this thing that feels like a next time on teaser is at the end of the movie is not so that he can tease the Joker coming, being the main villain next time. That's not the point. The point he says is because when Catwoman and Batman have their parting of the ways and you're screaming at Bruce to go with her. You have to really feel like there is a serious threat still in Gotham,

Gotham that he really needs to stay to protect. You get the shot of the penguin sort of looking out of the city and thinking about filling in the vacuum, but he felt like you needed that scene between the Riddler and the Joker to make it clear why the battle's not done and that Batman needs to stay in Gotham. All that being said, and as much as I love Barry Keown

do I agree with the Midnight Boys that we maybe could have done without this I kind of do and I will say this I also didn't love the design from what little we could see through the bars and I didn't see it in an IMAX but from what little we could see

I didn't love the look of him either but I'm willing to be proven wrong once we see him like more fully in the light I don't know how are you feeling about all of that. Who am I to argue with Matt Reeves, an actual director and movie maker? I think that it's fine and good

to say that that wasn't the intention to set up a sequel. I think you have to assume that's how people will perceive it, though. Oh, for sure. And so what you end up with is a bunch of people leaving the movie saying, man, I love that.

Also, wow, we're really going to set up the Joker as the primary villain of the second movie and what will probably be a trilogy again, which was the conversation, one of the conversations that we had as a group when we left the theater. So I think it's, you know,

we're going to be existing in a reality for the next few weeks where a lot of people have to pass that quote and explanation around for people to understand that. I think that's just true, especially if it's not two scenes, if it's just one.

You know, I think Barry's like an awesome actor, and I'm sure it would be deeply disturbing and entertaining to watch his Joker as a primary villain in a future installment. So if we do get the Joker in the second movie or movies to come, I'll be ready for it at that point, I think. But right now, I think I'm hoping for something else. I'm sure Barry will be amazing.

He's a tremendous actor. But I don't know, it's cool to see different villains get the spotlight. We've had a lot of Joker a lot. Matt Reeves doesn't strike me as someone who lies. And so I don't think that he's... saying, like, I'm not even sure he's going to be in the next movie. I don't think he's lying to protect the fact that Barry is going to be in the next movie. I think he genuinely is thinking of using the Joker in this very, like, light-touch way because he's

been so dominant in other places. That is interesting. I think if that continues and, like, recurs, that would be kind of cool. Yeah. But I, uh, Barry Kewin, what a, what a star, what a gemstone. This is the one thing I did know. Uh, I said to Chris and Sean on the big pick and I was being very serious that I knew very little about this movie going in.

I didn't even know Peter Sarasgarb was in it. And so when, but Barry Kewan's brother, like, posted on Facebook, like, hey, I can, like, because some, like, rumor website put it up. And so Barry Keon's brother's posted on Facebook, like, oh, hey, I can finally talk about this. My brother's playing the Joker. Isn't that cool? And then it was, like, immediately deleted.

And so that was like, that was the only, that was like a year ago. That was the only leak that I was aware of that, like, Barry Kiongap. Kewan because he was listed as like Detective Stanley Merkel, which is a character from the comics, but like, I was like, I'm pretty sure he's playing the Joker. Like somehow he's playing the Joker. So, yeah.

Well, one of the one of the spinoff possibilities that we'll talk about in a few minutes is a Arkham centric one. So that's a, that's a fascinating setting to see more of, of Barry potentially. Before we get there, Gordon, Jeffrey Wright,

Lieutenant Gordon, earlier career Gordon, we've talked about Gordon and Bat already in their relationship, but it was certainly one of the through lines and propulsive forces of the film. I really liked, as I know you did from your comments on Big Pick, that we didn't get every beat of how they found each other. It's just enough for us to see them together and know that that trust and that reliance is there. We literally hear like, I only trust you, but even just the way that they, I love the moment where they both show up and think the other one has called them to the bad signal, right? And the way that they,

move through the clues and the case together. You have that kind of like, we're in cahoots sequence of muttering and whispering to each other before they're about to play out the farce to get Batman out of the facility. But the idea that their trust is rooted in the fact that they actually both recognize as painful as it is for Gordon and understand that this corruption has festered and is out of control all around them, but also that that doesn't mean it's no longer worth fighting for that it.

means it's worth fighting even harder to try to repair and protect. I thought Jeffrey Wright was great and I'm really excited to see his Gordon more in the future. Speaking of horniness, this is another contribution from a friend of mine who was like, I kind of wanted them to kiss when they were like leaning in close and whispering in the jail cell. And he's like, I got a key for you. Do you want to, if you go upstairs, I'll distract them. That's just, you know, that's just Jeffrey Wright being Jeffrey Wright. I thought it was incredible. I think he might be my favorite Gordon, actually. He was great.

I thought it was fantastic to see more of him. We got to go kind of lightning around through the rest here. We've hit on a lot of this. What else do you want to say about Alfred, about this Gotham, about the Batmobile? The only thing I want to say about

Alfred is that I could have used more of him, and I'll be happy to hopefully see more of him in the future. The Gotham, I talked about plenty on the big pick, just the way that everything is rainy and the weird camera place. which feels very cloverfield like all of that gives you just a real sense of this of this city and this space i don't want to leave this without talking about peter sarisgard who i thought was incredible

boy uh in in in this part that they gave him this this drophead drophead d a loved him um and then i mean the batmobile my god yeah really i thought the the midnight boys were really on to something, you know, when they talked about it being this, like, relentless demon. The production designer James Chinlin, who has done a lot of Marvel work, gave an interview where, you know, they built this thing from the ground up. It's all electric. And that was the only way that they could get, like, all the flames to work the way that they wanted it to.

So it's not a single muscle car. It's like a hybrid of different kinds of muscle cars. But he, in this interview, he said, early on in conversations with Matt Reeves, we were talking about Christine, the Stephen King book. we're figuring out ways to make the car actually feel like it was breathing. I mean, I mean, this is my favorite Batmobile. The furnace heating up. Yeah, it's definitely near the top of my Batmobile power rankings now as well.

I'm eager over the course of future installments to learn more about, or for more tech to be added to it and learn more about what it does. But it's just, it's such a ferocious presence and a force. and the parallels between the Batmobile and the Batman, you know, emerging from the shadows into the light. It's just awesome, truly, truly awesome. And of course, one of the things that makes that Batmobile sequence so compelling is the sound. And we should talk for just a minute here about the sound across the film, the soundscape of this movie, the incredible, incredible Michael Giancino's score. What is, I think, instantly an iconic bat cue, you know, the sound that we will now associate

with this version of this character. Heavy reliance on Nirvana, not only in terms of something in the way being played, which it was in the trailers too, but in terms of that Seattle grunge aesthetic,

just an amazing musical movie overall. Ave Maria? The Riddler's theme being Aave Maria is not something I realized right away. When someone pointed out to me, I had a brain explosion

an emoji moment. I think it's incredible. And it's very, so like, you can hear, um, jikino, the jikina I studied most closely is his work on the TV series Lost. And you can hear some of, you can hear like the classic end of a Lost episode where it goes, you know, like that sound is in the Batman score. You can also hear some of the like, swoony or more romantic strings that he used on Lost are also in this score. But I think what he uses, what reminds me most distinctly of it is he's got

three pieces on the score. There's the Batman, the Catwoman, and the Ridler. So they're character-based themes. And then he mixes and mingles them depending on like sub-themes that he wants to do. And that's what he did on Lost all the time where it's like, we're going to blend Kate's theme with Jack's theme, and that's going to give us this thing here. And this is like a, it's not, he's not the first person to do this. It's just out that's a very, it's a proud Star Wars tradition. Yeah, it's a proud Star Wars tradition. It enhances the viewing experience. It's a very thronesy tradition as well and stuff like that. But I just really like that when you can identify a character theme and then listen to how a musical genius blends them together to give you a third theme out of it. I think it's brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. So good. I'm going to be, I'm going to be listening to the score a lot moving forward.

And visually, again, to refer, I mean, you should listen to Sean's full interview with Matt Reeves. We haven't even scratched the surface in the things that we've said. But like, again, to. to refer back to Dune and our cinematographer here, Greg Frazier, this idea that they shot it digitally, they transferred it onto film, and then back to digital to give it that really sort of like worn-in 70s cinematic look. That's what they did on Dune as well. I just think it's beautiful. What a movie.

Great stuff. Let's talk quickly about some of the movies and some of the shows that we are definitely getting or might get coming out of this. Want to run us through the planned HBO Max spinoffs in this era of the expanding DC canon? We haven't actually said this out loud, but we're not in the DCEU continuity in this movie, which is just worth establishing and is germane in terms of the spinoffs to come. Yeah, it's really interesting. So the Flash movie's coming up and Fat Flock and Michael Keaton are going to be in that.

So they're doing their own, like, it's not really fair to call it, you know, Spider-Man Multiverse. since like this is definitely something that's been on the books that they've been thinking about doing Flashpoint for a really long time. But so there's going to be multiple Batmans in the Flash movie. But none of those Batman, as far as we know, are going to be Robert Pattinson. And I think that's a good thing is I have trouble managing Robert Pattinson folding into that universe. But I mean, let's be real, Batflake and Keaton are very different Batman as well. So, you know, we got all sorts of stuff going on here. But I think that's a really interesting.

Like, there's going to be a bunch more Batman content, but it's not necessarily all going to be Reevesian in its execution. But the Reeves universe that we are going to see are these HBO Max shows, much like Peacemakers to Spend Off of Suicide Squad and the Benad Jesuits show that they're planning to do related to Dune. This is their sort of like new IP approaches. We're going to spin mini universes around our tent pole movies. which feels a little different from what Lucasfilm and Marvel is doing because they're trying to be like, here's our one massive universe and it's all connected.

Warner Brothers is like, we're going to focus on doing like mini-unis. Yeah. Which feels appropriate inside of DC given the extreme tonal variance across these properties. But that's the whole point, right, is like that Marvel has forced itself. And this is the point that our producer Steve likes to make it, like that Marvel has forced itself into a place where they can't. very tone too wildly, though we'll see with upcoming moon night and like the horror, the Marvel horror that they're planning to do, but like do they want to keep it so it all feels like it could mix and mingle if it has to, whereas this is allowed to, this movie, Matt Reeves

movie is allowed to be as weird as it wants to be. Do you know what I mean? Because it doesn't have to mix and mingle. But the show that feels the most certain is the Colin Farrell Penguin Show. Again, we loved Colin Farrell in this movie. Who knew we needed a Penguin Show? What a place to be. One of the Batman producers told SFX magazine,

we're doing one with Colin Farrell, seeing Oz rise to power, almost like a scarface story. It's exciting to do something like that just a standalone, but it speaks to the character in our movie. So you'll go back to the movie and say, oh, I see that backstory there

and that line refers to this. And Colin Farrell said an interview, we have to get into what made him the man he is. And also it will pick up where this film finished off, I think. I think it'll pick up a little short time after the last frame of this film, we'll get to go on a kind of left turn

off to the world of Oz and how he's beginning to kind of dream of a filling a potential power vacuum that may exist. The head writer here is Lauren Lefranc, who did some Ages of Shield, some Chuck, some Henlock Grove. So we're getting a Penguin show.

That's exciting. It really is. It is. I'm glad to know that it's picking up in the wake of this film because while it is interesting and exciting to learn more about how he got to that point,

And it would, I think, be strange to have ended with that concluding penguin shot of him kind of looming over his new domain and then to just rewind. So we can fill in some of that backstory and then move forward. I'll be curious to know how much of what would have may become pre-streaming era TV spinoff in just the next Batman movie in terms of the Gotham that's left in the wake of this flood and the wake of all that the riddler wrought. But I think that's exciting too because there's a lot of opportunity to continue that story not have us as viewers feel like we made this massive leap in time

and missed a lot of crucial story while also then having the next Batman film hit something totally new and totally different. And they can lean on what Lucas film is getting so much success with

and like maybe Robert Pattinson shows up for an episode or a scene an episode and everyone's like, when Scott Walker's here! You know what I mean? Like that might happen. Okay.

The other show, So the other show that they were planning to do, they were originally planning to do a Gotham PD show. But it looks like that plan is shifted. It was never confirmed whether or not Jeffrey Wright would definitely be in that, though that they were in conversation with Jeffrey Wright to be in a Gotham PD show that would center on the corruption of the Gotham PD. Instead, they're doing something more Arkham Asylum Central. Setting something in Arkham Asylum. What a great idea. I just saw your note in the dock. Classic.

Marreve said the GCDD thing, that story is sort of kind of evolved. We're actually now more into the realm of exactly what would happen in the world of Arkham as it relates coming off of our movie and some of the characters, almost leading to the idea of it's like a horror movie or a haunted house that is Arkham. The idea, again, the way that Gotham is a character of the movie, I really want Arkham to exist as a character. You go into this environment and counter these characters in a way that feels really fresh. And so in our work in Gotham, the story started to evolve.

It started feeling like, wait, we should really lean to this. And that's kind of where that's gone. My unfounded theory is that they don't want to touch a police show in our current era of police and copaganda discourse. Brooklyn 9-9 had a hard enough job wrapping up its series in all of this. So they've pivoted to Arkham. Something that I did mention in our bat draft when I was talking about Arkham-based thing is that, of course, Arkham as a central location, is a huge place in the fandom. because of the Ark of Asylum video games.

So, like, this is something that, you know, the fandom is prepped for and interested in. So that's all of that. And then last but not least, theoretically, possibly, there could be a Catwoman thing. Starring Zoe Kravitz. At the end of this movie, of course, Zoe moves off to Bloodhaven. Right. So Matt Reeves said, too, resource. I've talked to the HBO Max folks.

What we're really trying to do is launch this world. If the world embraces this, like meaning if all. audiences go see this in the theater. Which they have. We have a lot of ideas for things we want to do, and for sure we want Selena to continue. Does that mean we're getting a catwoman show? No, that's not what that sentence promises at all. Would I like one?

Yes. I would indeed. But in general, when you hear this, when you hear Penguin, Arkham, Catwoman, all this sort of stuff, how do you feel about the idea of sort of potentially weighing down this film that feels so blissfully and connected from continuity into its own interconnected world? Great. perhaps unsurprisingly. I am not only not troubled by the concerns that are probably

plaguing a sounder mind. But I am excited about this because one of my only, I don't even want to say laments, that's too strong of a word, but one of my only thinking face emoji stances after the movie was, I'm so interested in so many characters here. and as much as I would like for the penguin and Ridler and perhaps Joker and certainly Selena

and all of these characters who were built up in this movie for their stories to continue in the second movie. Should we get a second movie? Which I think we can assume is a given after the strong showing an opening weekend with this movie.

It's not reasonable to expect that we would just have the exact same set of characters and a Batman sequel. We're going to get a whole new suite of villains and because of what seems like, I think Reeves's draw to, again, that rogues gallery en masse, I think we'll get multiple new characters. And so I don't want Penguin, Selena, most of all, but also, you know, Penguin, even Ridler, etc., to just fade into the shadows and to never return. Like, one of the, this is not exactly apples to apples, not exactly one to one as literally saying this character will be back in a central way or even get their own show.

but one of the things that I like about the Nolan verse is that Raza Gould's pursuit doesn't just die with him at the end of Batman begins. That pursuit carries on into the Dark Night Rises through Talia Gould and through Bain. And I think it's important for these story threads to stitch their way through future installment. So I don't, I'm just not ready to take goodbye

to all these characters. And I think that giving them standalone properties is a way to keep exploring each character, but also this version of Gotham and the way that these threads connect without having to overly clog the next movie. But I want Zoe in the next movie, just to be clear.

Here's my wet blanket trepidation. When you have something like this that is so clearly well-sprung, I mean, Matt Rees has a co-writer on this film, but when you have something that is so deeply connected to one singular artistic vision, so Matt Rees co-wrote this movie with Peter Craig, but he wrote and directed this movie,

and he is just like in every step of the way. And he has his fingers in these other shows. But the nature of television, the nature of TV making and the nature of the fact that they're going to want another film sequel from him, it's not going to be Matt Reeves involved in every creative decision of these TV shows. And so then I worry about, I'm not worried about it, but I can't help but see a potential for variance in quality where you're just going to like, maybe we have a show that's run by someone who just doesn't think about things the same way Matt Reeves does or as deeply as he does. And I am less excited to see these toys moved off into another universe with someone else playing with them when I so enjoy the vibe that Matt Reeves is built here. And in moving those characters to those other places, it feels like it could possibly dilute the potency of just a core trilogy from one creator. So I know that that's a pessimistic way to look at it. But that's a concern I have.

Yeah, it's reasonable. It's reasonable. Hopefully you're right and I'm wrong. I hope you're right. I just hope that everyone who's creating these spinoffs is as tapped into the, to go to the quarantine here as we are. It is just hell bent on staying deeply indebted to it and connected to it at all costs. What about the next Reeves installment, though?

What about the next movie? What are you, we've talked a lot about hush and everything else as we've gone today. But what, if anything, are you specifically hoping to see? Well, there's, so there's a couple possibilities. There's no man's land, which is an interesting, like, Batman's, story about like a rebuilding a Gotham, a Gotham in sort of chaos and rebuilding it. That's a potential opportunity. There's a great, I don't know if you saw this, but there's a great shout out to my old

bosses at Vanity Fair. There's a great Vanity Fair video with Paul and Jeffrey and Zoe and Rob, and they are going through fan theories and talking about them. And you can tell that Rob did a lot of comic book reading leading up to this. and he was talking about how much he loves. He's all in a cord of owls, right? Yeah, he's talking about how much he loves cord of owls. And he says, I was definitely thinking that the quarter of owls would be in the sequel.

And Paul has, like, a reaction to it where he's like, did you be saying that in a way that made me think that it might be true? So, like, cord of alas, which is such a really cool, creepy concept would be really cool. And I think you could connect, because you already mentioned this earlier up top, the hush tease, the URL that leads to sort of a hush tease online, the Edward Elliott reference, all of that sort of stuff. If they wanted to, I think there's a clear way to combine a hush storyline and a court of owl's storyline into something really fun and creepy. Would it feel like a little bit more of a retread of like the wane, like implicating the wanes, which is sort of part of the court of owl storyline? I have faith that they could figure out a way to make that feel like fresh and interesting. But this idea for folks who don't know at the court of owls, which is this like ancient cabal at the center of Gotham that has been there for

centuries of the most powerful families in Gotham, I guess, except for the Waynes. So, like, you know, the Arkham, like, we talked about the Arkham's and the Waynes in this, but they're, like, the oldest families have had a shadowy control over the city. And Bruce Wayne puts himself at, this is Scott Snyder's invention, Bruce Wayne puts himself in their crosshairs when he comes forward with a plan to reshape and rebuild the city. So if our Bruce Wayne comes forward with a plan of, like, how are we going to reshape and rebuild the city post-flood? And the quarter of ours are like, this isn't your city.

This is our city. I mean, and their design is so cool. They're creepy Fidelio eyes wide shut mask sort of vibe that they give. Yes, in their army of talons. Yeah. I think it'd be really cool. I'm into that. And I think there's, especially in very capable hands, a way to make that feel less like a retread

and more like a very natural progression, actually, in continuation of what it would actually mean to continue to people. back the layers of this corrupt rotting onion. So I'm into that for sure. Before we get into the mailbag, we've talked about so many of the comic influences, but is there one additional favorite Easter egg from the, as you so aptly dubbed it,

Robin Egg Basket that you would like to observe or highlight? I guess a nightwing tease with Selena heading to Bloodhaven. Yeah. I do like that. But then also I have to, I have to shout this out. Robinson Bridge gets a mention. Robinson Park is a location that is often used. And this is a nod to DC artist Jerry Robinson. No relation as far as I know, but I am legally required to pledge my allegiance to all things, Robinson. Oh, my God. It's always fun to get the creator or writer, artist, nods in a street sign or on a license plate or bridge name. We got the Miller and Moore law firm for Frank Miller and Allen. We got Kane Street for Bob Kane. But yes, I mean, a Robinson. This is like, well, you got Barry and now you get Robinson Bridge. What a day for you.

What's this movie made for me? Incredible. I, okay, that's the, I will say, to go back to Barry really quickly, that was the one moment and I was like so sad I wasn't sitting next to you because I just kind of like grasped with the arm of my chair when it, because you hear him before you see him. And I was like, there he is. Because I thought of you. The movie was almost over.

And I was like, are we not getting Barry at all? And then he's like, sure, Begara. I'm the Joker. And you're like, yes. Sometimes. You're a clown. Yeah, I was genuinely elated for you. So happy for you.

So happy. Throw out everything I said before. I hope he's back and I hope he's in everything. Just for you. Love it. You never have enough Joker. Any other Easter robin eggs that you want to shout out? This isn't a bat way.

One, but I think we, because of our respective love of the movie, we would be remiss if we didn't toast good times grocery given the, uh, R-Paths, yeah. How central the R-Pats performance in the, that Safty Brothers movie is to why Reeves wanted him to be in this film. So that's probably one. Excellent.

All right. Mailbag. Do we get some creepy greeting cards from our listeners with cyphers in them? Man, we should have set that as the prompt. Everybody had to send us a coded mailbag question to see what we could come up with. Jomi, what do we got? We have some great ones. Did you have to find these by activating a thumb drive with a human thumb?

Did you have to go inside a bat cage? Did you have to get your black light out? No, it wasn't that serious. It wasn't that serious, you know, a little rhyming here, you know, a little iambic pentameter there. You know, it was all a little, shall I say, hush, hush. Oh, boy. But we got it done. We got it done.

All right. Our first question comes from Connor Rock. If there is a potential sequel, what song would you like to see used as a centerpiece in the way that something in the way by Nirvana was used in the current film? What a great question. Joe, do you have a pick for this?

Yeah, I'm going to pick a Gen XE pick Cusping Millennial and say, I'm going to go with Bush Machine Head. Bush, wow. I'm a big Bush Machine Head fan. Okay. Incredible. And you want this in the trailers. You want to hear it multiple times in the film.

You want this to be the same piece. How many times do we hear something in the way in the film? Twice, I think, yeah. Right? Yeah. I could bear Machine Head twice. Probably not thrice. I love it.

But twice. Yeah. So I am going to go with Marvin Gaye's sexual healing. And it will be playing for all three hours. uninterrupted and it will it will be the bedrock on which the bed is rocking

in my movie because my sequel is just Batman and Catwoman fucking the entire time what do you think the ring of verse contains content no

I don't know maybe if it's one of those you know how I'll make love to you break out the voice to men in the moonlight trailer they took Cutty, you know, and they, you know, tone it down a little bit, give a little scary feel.

Maybe they do that for the Marvin Gaye song, you know? It's the same lyrics, but just different. Oh my God, scary sexual healing sounds terrible, like, terrifying. Like, so scary. Yeah. Mallory's about to make the scariest Batman

ever. Oh, my God. For me, I think it's interesting because we've seen the film that he's like, You know, his parents were killed around like 2001, 2002. So, you know, he's, you know, he would have been around when my chemical romance was going on. You know what I'm saying? We need some, welcome to the black parade, you know, some teenagers.

Wow, some MCR. Yeah. You know, some of that album. Okay, so Robin's intro music can be teenagers scare the living shit out of me. I'm just saying it works on the timeline because he would be like, you know, going through high school and just be like, man, nobody. They love me, nobody care about me. MCR would be right there. Bruce Wayne is the black parade, like by himself.

Absolutely. Love that. White actually. It would be perfect. It would be perfect. All right. Our next question comes from Nick. And Nick wants to know, what happened to the other cats?

Only one was on the mortal cycle at the end. Thank you, Nick. This has been plaguing me. Dare I say haunting me. I'm troubled. this. I'm concerned. First of all, I'm concerned by placing a cat in a storage bin in the back of a motorcycle. So I don't want to say, maybe the other bins are full of other cats, because that's also deeply dismaying. But maybe they are. I don't know. It doesn't seem like they're all

going along with Selena to Bloodhaven, which is upsetting. She rehomed all of them. Each iceberg lounge waitress to deal with the trauma of the changing of the guard, you get a cat, and you get a cat. Loving homes? Okay. Yeah. Loving home with the iceberg stuff. I loved those cats.

They were so precious. My, in the running for best moment of the entire movie is when Bruce realizes that Selena is trying to communicate with him via the lens. And it's, there's a message written. And the cat is just hovering above it and it's full precious. Maybe the twins. Yeah, the twins. In their, you know, physical therapy rehab. These are their emotional support animals.

Oh, boy. That's. Maybe they see the light. If it's a part of their healing and they're ready to be nurturing and caring. Yeah. Okay. But those guys, uh, those guys are so good on the leftovers.

They're still funny. Oh, boy. That bit was great. It was good. It was always good. All right. We got another question from Rebecca J. Becca Jay asks, if you could swap out any character in this film for a previous version throughout all of Batman canon, who would it be and why?

Oh, what an interesting question. That's a really fun one. The idea is like instead of Colin Farrell, Danny DeVito, like that, is that what we're saying? Okay. So I think because I loved the cast so much and loved these portrayals so much, I'm reluctant to swap out anyone. And so I'm going to kind of cheat and go with like a. really minor role in the Batman so minor that it's not even really a role. We see this person in newspaper clippings and newsreel footage. I will be swapping in Eric Roberts' Sal Maroney from the

Nolanverse. He's on my mind right now because his incredible run is Jr. on the righteous gemstones. Just unbelievable work. And I think that would be a great way to bring. a prior version of Moroni into this story without having to disrupt really anything about this cast chemistry. What about you?

I also love Eric Roberts. I'm doing a justified rewatch and he just showed up in an episode of Justified and he's so good. I'm going to recast Thomas Wayne

with either Jeffrey Dean Morgan or Brett Cullen from the Joker. Either one of those Thomas Wains that we've seen before, I mean, Brett Cullen from the Joker

might make the most sense because that was also a Thomas Wayne running for mayor. So maybe that works. But how many like potential bastard brothers does Bruce Wade have running around Gotham? Probably too many. Oh, boy. Just a few. Found family indeed.

I agree. It's kind of a cheat because I don't want to recast any of the mains. What about you, Jomey? Who would you swap out? I'm with you guys. I'm with you guys with Eric Roberts. You know, I would love that. He's got the funniest thing for me, pound for pound.

Like, the Dark Night isn't really like a funny movie, but when I first watched it, I laughed so many times. Like when he puts the pencil and the dude's head, hilarious. But for me, the scene that always gets a laugh out of me is when Batman is interrogating him on the side. He throws him off. It's talking about the Joker. He's like, he must have friends. And I'm like, friends?

Have you met this guy? It's so great. That's up there with Jonathan Crane's not my professional estimation. Dark Night, low-key hilarious. How do you want to die? I choose exile. Send it to you to death. My exile.

I mean, so good. Really funny. All right, so our last quote, wait, hold on. I think we got, oh, no. Is a riddler-esque twist coming here? Oh, no, we got a riddle. For you to continue to get to the last question, you had to answer this riddle.

Oh, my gosh. Okay. I'm in the movie and went completely unseen in the theater from where you all sat. But recently, I pulled the strings of a spider, a bat, and a cat. What am I? I mean, is it Michael Giacchino? Oh. That was fast.

Wow. Joanna's in her back. Good stuff. Pull the strings. Love it. Beautiful. Like Bruce Wayne. I too have a dark,

dark-minded affinity for riddles. Wow. We only had to do one, not three and two minutes. That was a breeze. That was tough. You didn't get a bomb in the face. That was clutch.

Shout out to our old friend TD for that one. Oh, wow. He slid us a great one. Thank you. Incredible. Did he send it to you on a greeting card? Oh, no, no, no. This one came.

See, this is interesting. If you played the Arkham games, I had to go complete a riddler trophy to, you know, to complete all the riddler trophies to just get that final riddle. You know, it's the whole thing spent all last night doing it. But we're here. So it's no big thing. Worth it. Of course, always.

All right. Now that you answer the riddle, let's get to our last question. Oh, man, I'm excited for this. This is going to be, I'm just going to clear out. I'm just going to clear out. You guys can cook here. From Josh. Thank you, Josh.

I cannot thank you enough for this question. Who should Timothy Oliphant play in the sequel? Joe Mell? Holy shit. I mean, you got a Giacchino riddle. You got Robinson Bridge. You got Barry. I felt really seen and heard and known by our listeners for this one.

Holy moly. It's tough because, like, Tim does not do, and I call him Tim because we're best friends, so. Timmy doesn't really do he doesn't do villains that well I oh no I just remember the movie Go okay I mean he

Go ahead What about a villain where A part of his persona Is really draped in wealth and charm And then that And a direct like We dug cold

together, except we were rich boys and now I'm your surgeon. I was thinking about that. What about Tommy Elliott? What about Tony Elliott? Maybe. I just like, I have a hard time with the like, the twist. Plus, he's so much older than, uh, expert marksman. That's true.

That's a good point. But that's a good one. Lincoln March, who is this sort of plays a similar role in the Court of Owl storyline where he's like a candidate for mayor that you're like down with until you're not. that, yeah, something like that where he comes in and you're like, oh, this guy. And then you're like, oh, no. And they weaponize, like, our love and trust

in Timothy Oliphon against us. That's possible. But also, I was thinking of, he's really good in the movie Go. And also, I guess, the girl next door, he had a little stretch of playing villains. He's a villain in diehardt, too, right? This is a bad villain in diehards.

You know. I'll confess. right now, I have not seen the hitman, but I think he might also be like an anti-hero on the hitman, right? Doesn't he like kill a bunch of people as the titular hitman? Anyway, point being, he's better when he's an upstanding lawman. I mean, maybe he's a new cop in Gotham that's like too pure for this world and dies because he's because of his adherence to the law. You know what I mean?

Bring the marshal in after the flood. So I have to say, rewatching justified as I am really give us my view. villain actually. So he bends the law a lot on that show. So maybe, yeah, maybe a bent, a bent Gotham cop. Sounds like he'd be a perfect fit in a Batman tail then, you know? Or maybe he should be the star of the Gotham P.D. Arkham Asylum Show. I'm just saying.

Boy. If you want to use him a lot, that's fine. Timmy. Jones, you don't have an opinion on? I didn't at first, right? I was going to let y'all cook. But then hearing you talk about. about Timothy since we're all friends of the guy.

He's, you know, he's a big fan of the show. He's, you know, every week, every week. He's, he's charming, you know, trustworthy. Yes. You know, might have a little, you know, maybe he's got two sides to him. Yeah. I don't know.

I could see him as Harvey did, you know, if they wanted to make a little splash, you know, it's, you know, honestly, I remember time I've seen him, Yeah. I've seen him with a Western accent, you know, being a cowboy. I don't know. If there's any cowboys in Gotham.

I know. Cowboy vibe doesn't really fit in Gotham. But what I will say is that, first of all, I don't know why he's been playing cowboys for so long because he was, I think he grew up in Hawaii. And he's from like central California. Cowboy in the courtroom, though. What I feel really strongly about in terms of Harvey Dent is that that that is a character that we should definitely get like if he's, going to be Two-Face, we should definitely get him in movie two and not have him turn until movie three.

You should spend time with Harvey Dent and you should feel that relationship. I agree. At the end of the day, I don't love that Nolan made Harvey Dent and Bruce Wayne have a serial, though that has its interesting ramifications. But I think what would be really powerful is to show their friendship and then to feel the loss of it at the end. So yeah, Harvey Dent. I love it.

What we could do is cast Billy D. Williams in the first and the second movie. And then cast Timothy Oliphant in the third film, right? That works out for everybody. Yeah, double Star Wars. It works for me. Oh, you're saying Into the Dentverse. Should we do Into the Dentverse and get them all? Eric Hartley.

Everybody's bring everybody back. Let's go. God. Let's go Tommy Lee Jones. Where you at? Tommy Lee. Yeah, love it. Love this nice.

You were you were mulling this one. I was mulling Deadshot. I really like Deadshot. And I think he, you know, give him to him the only find a gun and then he's as good as anything. So. I would love, I would ask him, what's a great idea, Steve? I actually love that. Give him like the iPads, the gray hair.

I think that you have to just consider that Joanna doesn't want his face to be covered. Okay. Like once he took off the Mandalorian helmet, his face was never to be covered again. possibly a confrontational Lucius Fox Okay, one of our listeners pointed this up to me and it didn't,

it didn't occur to me until they pointed out that Mallory, with all love of my heart, that you pronounce his name Lucius, probably because of Lucius Malphoy. And that's why you said

Lucius Fox instead of Lucius Fox, but I liked it. Yeah, that's just how I say the name. I liked it. All right, any other nominees for our guy, Timmy? of a gender swapped poison ivy? No, I don't, I don't, I don't know.

Wow. Cowboy in the city is really hard for me to wrap my head around. It's a really tough fit. I like the Harvey Dent idea. I think that's really good. Yeah. Yeah. Making your new casting director, W.B.

And I won't be mad about, I won't be mad about half his face being blown off because we'll still get half the face. And that's what matters. Oh, God, indeed. And on that note. If you are justice, please do not lie. What is the price for today's podcast to now finally die? That's a wrap on today's episode.

Thank you to our Ridler, senior producer Steve Allman, for producing this episode. Our lieutenant, Arjunna Ram Gapal, for his additional production work on this episode, and our Caped Crusader Jomea Deneron for his work on the social for this episode. Remember, the Midnight Boys. We'll be back on Wednesday. House of our will be back on Friday. Until then, keep in mind. That House of Our music hits your ears.

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