‘The Batman’ backers would much rather see the sequel’s rumored villain go full-blown fantasy

Batman on the big screen has generally tried to stick to some form of realism. For the time, the Tim Burton movies were a relatively grounded take on the character, Christopher Nolan painstakingly explored what it would practically mean to be the Caped Crusader, and Robert Pattinson in The Batman was more of a crime drama than a superhero story.

Box office returns indicate this is a winning strategy, though there’s a huge swathe of more sci-fi and horror-themed stories that may not ever make it to live-action. That may change soon if the rumors about The Batman – Part II prove true, and we get Clayface as a villain.

In Batman: The Animated Series, he’s an amorphous clay monster who can constantly shift forms, almost like a grimier take on the T-1000. But, if he is going to make his live-action cinematic debut, fans are adamant they don’t want him to be toned down:

Does Pattinson’s Batman really have what it takes to deal with metahumans?

Let’s crack open the Batcave’s sci-fi closet!

We can only agree:

Maybe this is more of a route for The Brave and the Bold to go down:

Matt Reeves’ movies have always been fairly grounded, despite the fantastical subject matter, so perhaps he wouldn’t be keen on this:

We’d be surprised if it was anything other than the more realistic golden age Clayface:

With Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton apparently not sticking around for very long, it seems that sooner or later we’ll have two Batman franchises running simultaneously, with The Batman and The Brave and the Bold hopefully showing us distinctly different versions of the hero.

If that happens, expect the DCU’s Dark Knight to be the one dealing with the more bizarre and monstrous end of his rogues’ gallery, even if we can’t deny we really want to see Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne trying to deal with a rampaging mud man.