Matt Reeves, the director of Batman, has revealed that Robert Pattinson's Bruce Wayne is influenced by the late music idol Kurt Cobain of Nirvana.
In an interview with Empire Magazine for its "Huge 2022 Preview" edition, Reeves said that when he was writing the script for the new movie, he was listening to music as part of his creative process. And so, he put on Nirvana's grunge classic "Something In The Way."
"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," Reeves told the outlet. "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."
And after seeing Pattinson's performance in the Safdie Brothers' Good Time, Reeves believed he was the right candidate for the position.
"In that movie, you could really feel his vulnerability and desperation, but you could also feel his power," the director explained. "I thought that was a great mix. He’s also got that Kurt Cobain thing, where he looks like a rock star, but you also feel like he could be a recluse."
A new Bruce Wayne thus means a new Batman, and the flick will include "fewer of the flashy gadgets afforded by Lucius Fox in the Nolan trilogy, and a more home-spun, self-constructed edge" for the crime fighter, according to Empire.
"Bruce has been hiding away," Pattinson is quoted as saying of his character. "He’s not really a socialite at all. He’s building all these little contraptions and things, just with Alfred. And even Alfred thinks he’s gone insane!"
As for the hero's suit, the actor added that the weary look of it is attributed to Batman's relentless fight against crime in his native Gotham City.
"He’s been out every single night for two years, getting beaten up and shot and stabbed and burnt, and it shows," Pattinson explained. "There’s a bullet graze on the cowl, right at the beginning. I don’t think that’s been done before."
Apart from exclusive statements, the magazine also published two previously unseen stills from the picture, both of Robert Pattinson wearing and not wearing the famed Batsuit.