The Batman: Biggest Unanswered Questions From The Trailer

Fans got their first glimpse at footage from The Batman when the trailer debuted at DC FanDome, but the thrilling teaser left some big questions unanswered. DC's virtual convention lifted the lid on a slew of upcoming projects from the company. Everything from Zack Snyder's Justice League to Shazam 2 got a look in, but there's no question the most exciting development was Matt Reeves unveiling his The Batman trailer.

Fans have long-awaited a glimpse at the upcoming reboot, with just a brief screen test of star Robert Pattinson in-costume being the only official footage emerging prior to the trailer. Now, despite the film only being 25 to 30% complete according to Reeves, audiences have been treated to a bevvy of footage that revealed new details about the noirish Batman tale.
While there's no shortage of exciting revelations contained in the new footage, just like any good teaser should, the trailer left fans with plenty of unanswered questions. It's clear The Riddler will be the main villain of The Batman, and it seems corruption will be a major theme of the film, but there's plenty the trailer doesn't reveal. Here are the biggest unanswered questions from The Batman trailer.

As if The Batman didn't already run the risk of juggling too many villains, it's been confirmed Peter Sarsgaard will appear as District Attorney Gil Colson – and according to the actor he's a “pretty distasteful person". Colson will likely be caught up in the corruption that looks to be at the core of The Batman's narrative, but there's also a theory that, in the absence of DA Harvey Dent, Sarsgaard's character could become an alternate version of Two-Face.

Either way, the trailer didn't reveal much. In fact, Sarsgaard doesn't appear at all. The Looming Tower actor said he shot about 80% of his scenes before production on The Batman stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, Reeves confirmed the film is only 25 to 30% shot. With so little footage to work with, it seems odd for none of Sarsgaard's scenes to make the cut, especially considering he almost completed work on the movie. It could be his part is more minor than many are expecting, but it could also mean a lot of Colson's scenes would give away too much about the film. Are Reeves and DC trying to hide something by keeping Colson out of the teaser? Maybe that Two-Face theory has some legs.

It's been confirmed Pattinson's Batman will be in the second year of his crime-fighting career in the movie, which means this incarnation of the Dark Knight has a much more l0-fi aesthetic. Aside from the riot-gear batsuit, the biggest indicator of his nascent vigilante career is his sparse bat-cave – which isn't actually a cave.

This time around it looks as though Bruce has eschewed the natural underground cavern for an abandoned structure. During the trailer, Pattinson's Bruce Wayne rides a motorbike into his base of operations, and on first look it appears to be staged inside some sort of abandoned train depot. In the scene immediately prior, Bruce can be seen riding his bike through a cemetery (which looks to have been shot in Glasgow's Necropolis), leading some online sleuths to claim Pattinson has set up his "bat-cave" inside one of the cemetery structures, even suggesting he set up shop in his deceased parents' tomb.

It may seem unlikely, especially considering there's very clearly some tracks on the floor. But it's already been reported the bat symbol on Pattinson's bat-suit is a disassembled version of the gun used to kill his parents, so he obviously keeps symbols of his trauma close-by. Would it be so far-fetched to have this troubled, gothic, eye-makeup-sporting Batman operate out of a literal tomb?

One thing fans immediately spotted when the trailer debuted was the appearance of an owl on The Riddler's card to Batman. Many suggested this was an allusion to secret crime syndicate 'The Court of Owls' which has appeared in the Batman comics and was at the center of one of the most celebrated modern storylines.

It certainly makes sense for this to be an intentional Easter egg, potentially pointing to a shadowy organization pulling some strings behind the scenes of Gotham. Such a setup would play into the corruption theme, and Riddler, who is presumably the masked figure in goggles who duct tapes Gotham's mayor in the opening scenes of the trailer, looks similar to the design of many of the Court of Owls characters. Will the Court show up in The Batman?

In perhaps the most memorable scene from the trailer, Batman viscously beats a gang member before delivering the killer line "I'm vengeance". Many have speculated the gang in question is actually a band of criminals who've based their appearance on the Joker – hinting at the prior existence of the iconic Batman villain within Reeves' universe.

The face paint certainly has some Joker-esque features, with the unfortunate member who suffers Batman's rage sporting a kind of 'Chelsea smile' design, complete with stitches on his extended grin, resulting in a look reminiscent of Heath Ledger's Joker in The Dark Knight. The rest of the gang's white face paint certainly calls to mind the clown prince of crime, but there's not much else to go on here. One of the members also appears to have half his face covered, possibly alluding to Two-Face. This one is a long shot, but perhaps this lineup of undesirables is pointing to the existence of other legendary rogues from Batman's famous gallery.

When the trailer opens on the corpse of Gotham's mayor, the following brief scenes show Jeffrey Wright's Jim Gordon scouring the crime scene and focusing on newspaper pages on the wall. A sub-header on one of the pages reads “Seawall Construction Stalled”. Could this have some significance in the overall narrative of corruption that Reeves is spinning? The director spoke about Chinatown being a big influence on his movie, with its detective plot revealing corruption surrounding LA's water supply. Could this mysterious "seawall" project relate to the movie’s plot and the corruption Reeves spoke so much about? It could be nothing, but it already seems the director has an eye for detail.

Staying on the theme of corruption - at the trailer's end Riddler’s voice can be heard telling Bruce Wayne that he is “part of this too” – likely suggesting he's somehow tied to the emerging story of The Batman's version of Gotham City and its historic corruption. Reeves said during his Fandome panel that the film's narrative "describes this epic history of corruption on Gotham," adding: "you start to understand 'where did [Bruce's] family sit in that?'"

Is Reeves using his film to introduce a flawed version of Bruce's parents who played into the ongoing corruption that plagues the city their son has sworn to protect? It's a novel idea that could cause Pattinson's troubled Bruce even more heartache, forcing him to confront the idea that his beloved parents played a part in turning Gotham into the hell-scape he fights so doggedly to transform. If this isn't what Reeves is going for with The Batman, then how else could Bruce be part of the story Riddler is uncovering?