What Might Have Influenced Robert Pattinson’s Batsuit?

Writer and director Matt Reeves caused a meltdown on social media yesterday when he took to Vimeo to upload a video of the costume test for Robert Pattinson’s Batsuit in his 2021 appearance as Bruce Wayne in ‘The Batman.’

Following the trend Todd Philips started in September of 2018 with Joaquin Phoenix in ‘Joker,’ Reeves uploaded the test video as a way of getting a good look at the main costume for Batman, presumably before a poor-quality set photo leaked. The video shows Robert Pattinson donning the full costume in dimly lit red lighting with a taste of Michael Giacchino’s score playing over it.

Many fans took to social media to point out some of the design aspects that Oscar Nominated/Winning costume designer Jacqueline Durran might have included in the suit, noting the actual emblem looks to be made of pieces of a gun. So far there has been no official confirmation of this.

The suit overall looks to be more rough than it has been in previous live-action adaptations of the character. The cowl appears to be made from pieces of stitched together leather, juxtaposing the more uniform leather design of Affleck’s cowl, the armor has a more jagged design than, say, Bale’s armored suit, and the emblem on the chest has more of a technological feel to it. While we haven’t seen much, what we’ve seen overall is something that I instantly fell in love with.

I noticed very early that this Batsuit draws it’s inspiration from many different sources. Two of the notable ones are the suits from the Arkham video games (specifically Arkham Knight), and the Telltale series.

The hand-stitched, broken up aesthetic of Pattinson’s cowl is clearly inspired by the cowl from the Telltale Batman series. While the Telltale one is more streamlined and slim-fitting to Bruce Wayne’s head, Pattinson’s is more homemade.

The look of Pattinson’s chest piece, as well as his shoulder pads is very clearly taken from the style of the suit in Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham Knight. Each armored piece for the chest is broken up into two segments beneath the logo, and the shoulder pads on both have an arc to them just beside the chest piece.

The aspect of Pattinson’s Batsuit that stands out the most to me is probably the emblem. It’s very non-traditional for a live-action Batsuit, and forgoes adding the head to it. This is a nod to the original 1939 Batsuit that Bruce Wayne wore in Detective Comics #27. I’ll even admit that the logo is an acquired taste, but I’ve come to like it. While we haven’t seen the ears yet on the cowl, the shape of the head makes me suspect that they too are inspired by the original Batsuit.

It’s likely that a more detailed photo of Robert Pattinson’s Batsuit will make it’s way online soon, whether it’s leaked from the set by photographers or released officially by Reeves himself, but for now, we get to enjoy that costume test reveal, and speculate on what might be in store for us.

‘The Batman” is written and directed by Matt Reeves, starring Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne, Zoë Kravitz as Selina Kyle, Paul Dano as The Riddler, and Colin Farrell as The Penguin. The film is set to hit theaters on June 25th, 2021