After a decade spent chaining successes with independent films, Robert Pattinson, revealed by his role as a vampire in the "Twilight" saga, took the initiative of a meeting with the filmmakers charged by the Warner Bros studios to relaunch the Batman franchise.

"He was the one who came to get me, and at one point he brought Batman into the conversation," producer Dylan Clark told AFP.

Even if the young first - who still displays now 35 years old - seemed "a little bit wary" at the idea of ​​rubbing shoulders with a big Hollywood production again, he was "sincerely interested in the character of Batman and Bruce Wayne," he added.

Result of this meeting, the new part of the adventures of Batman, soberly entitled "The Batman" and which leaves Friday in the United States.

We find a young Bruce Wayne who begins behind the mask of the nocturnal vigilante and who has not yet won the confidence of the police and the population of Gotham City.

The hero played by Robert Pattinson still has work to perfect his style and his tactics to fight against the criminals scouring the fictional city.

As for its famous gadgets, they are only at the prototype stage.

"The Batman," even compared to Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale's already dark trilogy, is striking in its macabre, noir tone.

Batman himself seems desperate, almost depressive, a character partly inspired by Kurt Cobain, late leader of the group Nirvana whose music is very present in the film.

Robert Pattinson, fresh out of a supporting role in "Tenet", Christopher Nolan's super-production, "wanted to play a physical role", remembers Dylan Clark.

“Little did he know that the script was going to take this character through an emotional and physical roller coaster and that he was going to put himself to the test,” he laughs.

"Left Behind"

This Batman "is a tormented hero, almost sometimes an anti-hero. It's really revenge that is his engine", analyzes the producer of the new opus.

Batman is in pursuit of the Sphinx (Paul Dano), a most sinister serial killer who claims in his delirium to lead a crusade against the corrupt elites of Gotham.

His assassinations, broadcast on social networks, quickly become very popular with a section of the population who will start adulating the sociopath as a guru.

“Matt wrote this script two years before production started (in 2020). I think he was just looking at our world and what was going on in it,” comments Dylan Clark.

"Gotham is like a mirror of our societies. And I think it's a representation of those people who feel left behind and who are unhappy", which however defends itself from any political or "sensationalist" message.

Robert Pattinson succeeds in this role to Ben Affleck, whose performances in Batman have been received quite freshly by fans of the DC Comics universe.

The actor had written a part of the adventures of Batman which he was also to direct, but he completely abandoned the project after a slump in his personal life, between his addiction to alcohol and his divorce from the actress. Jennifer Garner.

"DC had to go through a kind of transition," Dylan Clark says in retrospect.

The fact of having to find a new face to embody Batman gave the filmmakers the opportunity to make "a new start" in this saga, inaugurated in comics more than 80 years ago.

"Matt's idea was to try to introduce this new Batman to a place where we had never seen him before," Clark explains.

A "very stimulating" but "also terrifying" undertaking because it is very ambitious for a character of Batman's stature.

The expectation of the public is "you had better make a great Batman or we will hate you", summarizes the producer.

© 2022 AFP