As a superhero who stars exclusively in big budget blockbusters that coat a great deal of money to produce, and are designed with generating the maximum amount of revenue from audiences around the world, there’s only so far you can push Batman on the big screen in terms of the darkness that surrounds the character both internally and externally.
Zack Snyder is the only filmmaker to have placed the Dark Knight in an R-rated setting, and even then Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice‘s Ultimate Edition and HBO Max’s Justice League never saw the inside of a theater. Matt Reeves’ The Batman looks incredibly dark from both an aesthetic and narrative point of view, but it would still be a massive surprise if it wasn’t rated PG-13.
However, we’re hearing from our sources – the same ones who told us Ben Affleck would be back as Batman in The Flash long before it was confirmed – that Robert Pattinson is reportedly keen to incorporate more horror elements into any potential sequels, with the terrors probably much better suited to being psychological in nature.
Split, Drag Me to Hell, A Quiet Place, Lights Out and Insidious were all rated PG-13, as were The Dark Knight, the True Grit remake, Hanna and more, so the boundaries can be pushed pretty far under the right circumstances. What ‘horror’ in the case of The Batman means is entirely up for debate, though, but the Caped Crusader has found himself caught up in some seriously gnarly adventures over the decades, with arcs like The Batman Who Laughs, Death of the Family, The Court of Owls and The Black Mirror all scary in their own way, so it’s not entirely out of the question to see things take a terrifying turn for Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne.
