On Tuesday, Robert Pattinson’s Variety interview revealed a standout tidbit about how he was pretty surprised about not seeing more backlash over casting for Matt Reeves’ The Batman. Indeed, the lack of angst from comic book fans was somewhat shocking, given that people never really warmed to the Batfleck, and back in the late 1980s, Michael Keaton was dragged for being Mr. Mom prior to donning the cowl. Outrage over jawline-under-a-mask casting seems like a rite of passage, but the lack of fuss over Pattinson’s casting wasn’t the biggest controversy to potentially come from his Variety interview.
A day later, people are now zeroing in on a paragraph where Pattinson freaks out after making a comment about Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker (as directed by Todd Phillips) and asking to retract his words. It feels important to note that Pattinson hasn’t seen Joker yet, but he also won’t begin shooting The Batman until early 2020. So does he know something about the two characters in relation to each other, or was he simply riffing? The paragraph began with the Twilight and Lost City Of Z star stating that “I don’t know anything” about whether he’ll star in multiple Batman movies. And then this happens:
At one point in our conversation, he offers a mundane comment about Joaquin Phoenix, who stars in “Joker” (a movie he hasn’t seen yet), before asking to retract it. “Oh s—,” he says, adding that he’s not accustomed to thinking about spoilers. “I definitely should not say that. I’m so used to pretty art-house movies, where you can watch the movie three times and still not know what it’s about.”
Sooooo, what was the spoiler that Pattinson seemed concerned about revealing, if there was one at all? The very first leap that people would love to make, obviously, would be news of a crossover, which would — on its face — make a little bit of sense since both of these Warner Bros. projects sit outside the DCEU. Yet would it even be possible, timeline-wise, for Pattinson’s Batman and Phoenix’s Joker to come face-to-face (after Bruce Cullen plays Thomas Wayne in Joker)? Pattinson is certainly playing a more youthful incarnation of Bruce Wayne, but it still doesn’t seem probable for Phoenix’s Joker (who we’ll first meet as 1980s Arthur Fleck) to meet up with him unless he’s a sextagenarian. Really though, that wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility? Just toss more makeup on Joaquin or throw in some CGI, and he’d be good to go. Yet since Variety appears to have omitted whatever Pattinson said that spooked him so much, we may never know.
Right about now, Tom Holland is breathing a sigh of relief that he’s not currently the biggest potential comic book movie spoiler, at least for today.