Five Years Ago, ‘The Batman’ Made Its Brutal, Moody Debut

On August 22, 2020, Warner Bros. held its first-ever DC FanDome, a weekend-long virtual event meant to make up for that year’s San Diego Comic-Con, which was canceled due to the pandemic. If you’ve ever followed big industry events like the Game Awards or… well, Comic-Con, you know they often come with a big trailer or two that’s meant to make it all worth it. And for WB, the big showcase for its inaugural, short-lived event was the very first look at Matt Reeves’ The Batman.

Trailers for superhero movies have gradually become more and more of a big deal, whether they’re telegraphed in advance, leaked, or appear just out of the blue. The Batman already caught the internet’s eye with casting Twilight alum Robert Pattinson in the lead role, and excitement truly began to grow once Reeves showed the actor in his Batsuit and the most car-looking Batmobile in years.

It also didn’t hurt that this was the first solo Bat-movie in nearly a decade and technically the true start of WB’s plans to dabble around with a cinematic multiverse that kept this Batman in his own world away from other goings-on at the time.

Within 24 hours, that teaser amassed over 31 million views, and while those numbers are short in the grand scheme, it did its job in getting people talking about Batman again. If online circles weren’t discussing its darkness in comparison to the Nolan films, they were gushing over Colin Farrell’s makeup job as Penguin or listening to Nirvana’s “Something in the Way” on repeat. For a movie that was openly marketing itself back then as still in the works, it won enough of the internet over right away that they were willing to follow Reeves to hell if it meant getting to see this on the big screen.

Had things gone to plan, The Batman would’ve come out in June 2021, but the pandemic forced a readjustment. The Batman was a quarter into production when it was indefinitely paused for most of 2020, during which the film’s dialect coach Andrew Jack passed away from covid and Pattinson himself tested positive just days after work resumed again. As a result, things were basically radio silent until late 2021, when the film basically reintroduced itself with a new trailer that kept the mood and song but featured more bombast and a great idea of what the movie would be about. On just one of WB’s YouTube accounts, it’s gotten over 65 million views and closes on a shot that’ll likely define Reeves’ entire Batman tenure. If there were any doubts that people lost interest in this movie because of the pandemic, that second trailer sure proved that wrong.

Since that first trailer came and went, The Batman (which hit theaters March 4, 2022) has continued to have a hold on the internet, which has been waiting impatiently for its sequel. Like its predecessor, The Batman Part II has had no shortage of production problems and delays, to the degree that DC Studios head James Gunn politely (but firmly) told people to back off Reeves. The second movie isn’t due for another two years and change and only recently entered pre-production—but when the first proper look at that one hits, expect comparisons between it and its predecessor’s first trailer as fans once again prepare to fall in love with Reeves’ interpretation of DC’s ever-brooding leading man.

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