‘The Batman’: Rocker Kurt Cobain Inspiration for Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne

It’s been two months since audiences got their first look at Matt Reeves’ new take on Batman. Now, in a new interview with Empire magazine, Reeves is sharing his inspiration behind Robert Pattinson’s portrayal of Bruce Wayne.

“When I write, I listen to music, and as I was writing the first act, I put on Nirvana’s ‘Something In The Way’,” Reeves said. It was within the music that Reeves decided to forego the standard portrayal of Bruce Wayne as a playboy and go for something edgier. “There’s another version who had gone through a great tragedy and become a recluse. 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.”

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With Kurt Cobain in his mind, it only galvanized Reeves’ decision to cast Pattinson. “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,” said Reeves. Because of that, the aesthetic around everything associated with the character had to change, so gone are the flashy gadgets. “He’s not really a socialite at all. He’s building all these little contraptions and things, just with Alfred,” said Reeves.

Reeves’ cinematic influences for “The Batman” include “Chinatown,” “The French Connection,” and “Taxi Driver.” The “War for the Planet of the Apes” director co-wrote the script with Mattson Tomlin, and “The Batman” features cinematography from Oscar-nominated DP Greig Fraser, who also shot Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming “Dune,” as well as “Lion” and “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.”

Director Reeves stated in April 2020 that fans should not expect to see a young, orphaned Bruce Wayne find his calling in “The Batman.” In fact, the film is not an origin story at all.

“The thing I related to in the Batman story is that he isn’t a superhero in the traditional sense,” Reeves explained. “If he has a superpower, it’s the ability to endure…He’s a very alive character, and to tell a version of Batman that wasn’t about how he became Batman, but the early days of being Batman…to see it in new ways, that was a way to do something that hasn’t been done.”

“The Batman” hits theaters March 4, 2022.

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