Given the amount of secrecy surrounding the plot of The Batman, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Christopher Nolan was still holding the reins of the franchise. Director Matt Reeves is currently gearing up to shoot the Dark Knight’s latest big screen adventure to meet a July 2021 release date, and despite an impressive ensemble cast being announced, even the faintest hint of any plot details have yet to be released.
With a property as important as Batman, you can understand why the creative team are playing their cards so close to their chest, especially when the last cinematic version of the Caped Crusader was Ben Affleck’s divisive tenure under the cowl, with many agreeing that he had the potential to be a great Batman, but was unfortunately saddled with Zack Snyder-era DCEU material to work with.
The Batman has long been mooted though to finally explore why Bruce Wayne’s costumed alter-ego is known as the World’s Greatest Detective, something previous movies haven’t really delved into in too much detail, with rumors hinting that the comic book blockbuster will be a more noir-driven story than audiences are used to seeing. This includes repeated reports that the story features multiple villains from the character’s extensive rogues gallery, and now we know how it might all come together.
Sources close to We Got This Covered – the same ones who said that both Jonah Hill and Mahershala Ali were attached to the film before they dropped out, which we now know to be true – have tipped us off about The Batman‘s plot, and it definitely ties in with a lot of reports we’ve been hearing about the movie so far. From what we understand, the story is based around Gotham’s mayoral elections, with someone paying one of the villains to kill off the candidates one by one, forcing Batman into action in an effort to track down the culprit.
This is said to be why the script features so many villains, with the Dark Knight investigating his old foes one-by-one until he tracks down the mastermind behind the whole thing. Apparently, it’ll turn out to be the Riddler, with either Harvey Dent or the Penguin (it’s currently undecided) said to be the one paying Nygma. And given that this intel comes to us from the same sources who also said a Green Lantern show was heading to HBO Max and an Arrow spinoff was in the works at The CW before either of those were announced, we have no reason to doubt it.
Of course, things can always change in the script as production progresses, but if the story ends up turning out like this, it’d be a great hook for a new Batman movie, as well as creating an organic reason to feature so many recognizable bad guys without forcing them into the plot unnecessarily. With Matt Reeves behind the camera and Robert Pattinson in the costume, The Batman is already shaping up to be the most exciting comic book films on DC and Warner Bros.’ upcoming schedule, and a fresh spin on such a familiar character would be a great way to go.
