Of all the superhero characters in popular culture (and there are a lot dominating right now) Batman remains one of the more engaging figures and one with the most longevity. This is largely due to the mutability of the core story that allows constant variations of the mythology and characters to be told. The films can also endure huge tonal and stylistic shifts so that they might be camp or gritty, hyperreal or realistic, live action or animated with Lego, dark and shadowy or… dark and shadowy but with a few overcast daytime scenes and a bit more blue in the otherwise mostly black batsuit costume.
While the recent Marvel Cinematic Universe film Spider-Man: No Way Home used an innovative multiverse concept to create a narrative justification and cohesion for why the Spider-Man character has existed in separate film series, the use of DC’s Batman character has never come remotely close to feeling as homogenised. For this reason, while it still seems like very little time has passed since we were introduced to Ben Affleck’s version of the Caped Crusader, it also does not seem too unreasonable to start yet another version of the story once again, this time with Robert Pattinson in the lead role.
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