Kravitz, Batman, Viking: Weekly Round Up

21st October 2019

Kravitz, Batman, Viking: Weekly Round Up. Okay. Fine. You win, Hollywood, or more specifically DC, you win. I won’t wash my hands of blockbusters just yet, I’ll hold out, because if Joker is a hint toward where you’re heading, and if the news about Matt Reeves’ The Batman this week is anything to go by, you may have just figured out how to inject some life into the endless slew of pretty average, painfully dull CGI bore-fests that currently inhabit our cinemas.

That’s right, this week we got some Batman news (or should that be The Batman – the “the” is how you tell it’s a super serious take, don’t you know?). After the somewhat disappointing revelation that Jonah Hill isn’t going to be appearing in the movie, we got two key pieces of casting confirmed that immediately set the film back on the track to becoming my most anticipated of the big superhero films of next year (no, I don’t care even a little bit that Marvel are doing another Spider-Man, f**k Disney).

First up is Zoe Kravitz, who you may know from her appearance in Mad Max: Fury Road. Kravitz will be squaring up against Robert Pattinson’s Batman (R-Batz? Battison?) as the new Catwoman. This is a pretty interesting piece of casting, I haven’t seen much from Kravitz, but what I have seen is fine, and Kravitz certainly has the right kind of look.

The second piece of casting, and perhaps the most intriguing thus far (and don’t forget, this movie cast Robert Pattinson in the lead), comes in the form of Paul Dano…

Yep. You read that right; Paul Dano – as in There Will Be Blood, as in Little Miss Sunshine, as in Prisoners – has been cast. And perhaps even more intriguingly, he’s been cast as The Riddler! Last seen on the big screen in the form of Jim Carrey in Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever, The Riddler is a somewhat underrepresented (at least in movie form) Batman villain, considering he is arguably one of the more recognizable ones outside of the likes of Joker and Catwoman, so it’ll be interesting to see where Reeves and Dano choose to take this.

But those aren’t the only fascinating things we learned about The Batman this week. Rather tantalizingly, Batman himself, Robert Pattinson, has a surprising revelation to share, and that is that, at least as far as he’s concerned, this iteration of the Dark Knight is “not a hero”… Take from that what you will.

I’m rather interested by all of this though, I’ll be honest. It sounds rather exciting, doesn’t it? And with the news that Reeves and co. are also seeking someone to hold an umbrella and look menacing as Penguin, The Batman is shaping up to be one of the more interesting of the big budget, superher0-centric movies coming our way. And consider just how freaking many of them there are, that, I think, says a lot.

But that’s not the only weird, but kind of awesome, casting to hit the news this week. Oh no!

If you weren’t already captivated by the concept of a Matrix 4 (c’mon, what the hell is this movie even going to be?), then this week’s announcements are sure to get you on the hype-train.

After news broke last week that Aquaman’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is joining Keanu and Carrie-Anne on their return to the Matrix, this week we got confirmation of another new face to the franchise. This one comes in the form of Neil Patrick Harris! Now, full disclosure, any movie with NPH is a win for me, so I may already be geared toward loving this, but none the less, it’s a pretty weird choice, right?

Quite who NPH will be playing we don’t know yet, although various names for the character have been floated about, including an Agent, the adult Spoonboy from the original movie, and possibly a younger iteration of the Architect, but this is all pure speculation.

Jada Pinkett-Smith is also in talks, apparently, to reprise her role of Niobe. Still no news on Laurence Fishburne returning though, which is interesting since, of the three core characters of the original trilogy, he’s the only one that was (spoiler) alive by the end of Revolutions.

And finally (no, I’m not doing any Marvel/Star Wars/Disney stuff. You can find that literally everywhere else), Robert Eggers, the man behind my favourite movie of 2015, The Witch, and my most anticipated movie of… well, is it 2019, or 2020? I’m not sure, The Lighthouse (BRWC, if you’re reading this and you get a screener… pleeeeeease????) has announced that his next film will be a Viking revenge movie, set in 10^th Century Iceland.

I mean, c’mon! Anyone who read that and didn’t immediately get super excited is dead inside.

The film is supposedly going to star Nicole Kidman and Bill Skarsgard, which is pretty awesome casting in its own right. But that’s not all, also featuring in the movie will be Anya Taylor-Joy, and Will e m Dafoe, both of whom Eggers has worked with before.

This movie sounds absolutely brilliant, and I don’t even know anything about it. So, maybe I’m bias, but who cares? No I.

Facebook

Google

Twitter

We hope you're enjoying BRWC. You should check us out on our social channels, subscribe to our newsletter, and tell your friends. BRWC is short for battleroyalewithcheese.