Viral Riddler site for ‘The Batman’ trades riddles for early conceptual sketches

After Matt Reeves recently released a motion poster inspired by The Riddler, one of Batman’s greatest adversaries, even more promotional material teasing the upcoming The Batman has placed Paul Dano’s Edward Nygma in the spotlight. After some digging, fans were lured towards rataalada.com, a website supposedly crafted and operated by The Riddler himself.

Therein, visitors can choose to “play a game” with The Riddler and answer his riddles correctly in exchange for a prize. The answers to the riddles are “Batman,” “street” and “laws” — in that order — and when accepted, The Riddler will grant access to some GCPD police sketches that detail the conceptual development of Batman’s overall appearance from early outlines to shaded finishes. You can take a look at the sketches for yourselves below.

In a recent interview with Empire, Reeves revealed that Robert Pattinson’s inspiration behind the caped crusader was none other than Kurt Cobain of the influential rock band Nirvana.

“When I write, I listen to music, and as I was writing the first act, I put on Nirvana’s ‘Something In The Way’,” Reeves tells Empire. “That’s when it came to me that, rather than make Bruce Wayne the playboy version we’ve seen before, there’s another version who had gone through a great tragedy and become a recluse. So I started making this connection to Gus Van Sant’s Last Days, and the idea of this fictionalized version of Kurt Cobain being in this kind of decaying manor.”

Furthermore, Reeves mentioned that his approach to The Batman would borrow inspiration from the noir genre and focus more on Batman’s detective mode ability than any of the other films in the franchise.

“It’s very much a point of view-driven, noir Batman tale. It’s told very squarely on his shoulders, and I hope it’s going to be a story that will be thrilling but also emotional,” Reeves told The Hollywood Reporter. “It’s more Batman in his detective mode than we’ve seen in the films. The comics have a history of that. He’s supposed to be the world’s greatest detective, and that’s not necessarily been a part of what the movies have been. I’d love this to be one where when we go on that journey of tracking down the criminals and trying to solve a crime, it’s going to allow his character to have an arc so that he can go through a transformation.”

Riddle me this, riddle me that: The Batman hits theaters on March 4, 2022.