The Batman may be the longest Bat-film ever

The Batman is the latest attempt by Warner Bros. to get their own Bat-movie franchise, the latest having fizzled after Ben Affleck left the role. The new Bat-star under the cowl is Robert Pattinson, who has gotten comfortable in the costume. “There’s a whole different language, body language, you have to learn to make it do what you want it to do,” he told Movie Maker. “If you look too much into the light, it looks completely ridiculous, and you’re wearing a Halloween costume. But if you’re like two millimeters down, it’s like — oh, that’s completely totemic, and like it looks exactly how it’s supposed to look. But to learn how to feel that and learn how to react to how the light hits it, takes forever.”

And Pattinson will need to be able to get around in the suit, cause he’ll be in it for a long time. According to IMAX Melbourne, The Batman will run for 176 minutes, or two hours and 56 minutes. So far as superhero movies go, the only theatrical release that beats it is Avengers: Endgame, and it’s easily the longest Bat-movie; its closest competition is 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises, which clocks in at 165 minutes.

That said, IMAX lengths have been known to be off by as much as a dozen minutes before, although that still might make The Batman the longest Bat-movie ever. Considering that Batman will be going up against the Riddler, the Penguin and Catwoman, it will need all the space it can get.

The Batman will fight against Gotham City corruption

And when he’s not fighting supervillains, Batman will have the corruption of Gotham City’s institutions to deal with. “I wanted to do a story in which the corruption of Gotham was one of the most important aspects of the story, because Gotham is a sick place,” director Matt Reeves said. “Bruce is desperate to try and make a change. He’s still stuck, to be honest, emotionally stunted at being 10 years old, because that’s a trauma you don’t get past – witnessing your parents murder in this place.”

"This idea of a place that is corrupt, and you try to swim against the tide in order to fight against it and make a difference, is quintessential Batman. And at the center of those noir stories is almost always the detective, right? And that’s why he is the world’s greatest detective. And so this story is, in addition to being almost a horror movie, and a thriller, and an action movie, at its core, it’s also very much a detective story. It’s very narrative."

Finally, before we go, here’s one last Bat-tidbit for you: earlier this week, people in Missouri got an emergency alert to be on the lookout for a vehicle apparently at large in Gotham City:

That’s the car driven by the Joker’s goons in the 1989 Batman movie, FYI. The Missouri State Highway Patrol quickly let everyone know that the text was a mistake, but we’ll have the memories forever.

The Batman premieres in theaters on March 4.

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h/t GamesRadar