The Brave and the Bold Director Says Robert Pattinson Won’t Be the DCU Batman

Robert Pattinson’s Batman is flying solo. In 2023, DC Studios co-chairmen James Gunn and Peter Safran announced the new Batman film The Brave and the Bold, which would introduce the Batman and Robin of the DC Universe: Bruce Wayne and his son, Damian Wayne. “This is the introduction of the DCU’s Batman, of Bruce Wayne,” Gunn said at the time, adding that a new Batman actor would be cast for the father-son dynamic duo. “It is not Robert Pattinson. It is not Ben Affleck.”

Gunn and The Batman filmmaker Matt Reeves have since confirmed that there have been talks about incorporating Reeves’ Batman Epic Crime Saga into Safran and Gunn’s new DC Universe, with Pattinson acting as the DCU Batman. But in an interview with Spanish radio station Radio TU, director Andy Muschietti said that it will be “quite obvious” that the Batman in The Brave and the Bold isn’t the same Batman from The Batman: Part II.

With Reeves’ sequel recently being delayed from 2026 to 2027, Muschietti said that it “will take a while” until The Brave and the Bold is released because “it would be absurd to release two Batman movies at the same time.”

RELATED: Matt Reeves Confirms Talks About Robert Pattinson as the DCU Batman: “We’ll Have to See Where That Goes”

The Flash filmmaker added that DC Studios is “putting together a plan” so that The Batman 2 and The Brave and the Bold can coexist while remaining separate. “As for my participation in the film, there are good intentions,” Muschietti continued. “I want to make the movie and we’re talking about ideas and story and tone. I can’t say anything, but it’s going to be great, that’s what I can tell you for sure.”

Andy and Barbara Muschietti, whose credits include 2017’s IT and 2019’s IT Chapter Two, are producing the live-action feature that is based on the 2006 “Batman & Son” storyline from writer Grant Morrison’s Batman run.

“This is a story of Damian Wayne, who’s Batman’s actual son that he didn’t know existed for the first eight to ten years of his life. He was raised as a little murderer and assassin,” Gunn said in 2023. “He’s my favorite Robin. It’s based on the Grant Morrison comic run, which is one of my favorite Batman runs. We’re putting it all together right now.”

Because Batman already exists as an established crime-fighter in the DCU, The Brave and the Bold is “going to feature other members of the extended Bat-Family,” Safran said. “We feel like they’ve been left out of the Batman stories in the theater for far too long.”

By the time of “Batman & Son,” Tim Drake has succeeded Dick Grayson (now Nightwing) as Robin and clashes with Damian, the son of Bruce and Talia al Ghul. Spanning Batman #655-658, the four-issue storyline also features appearances by the Joker and an army of ninja Man-Bats.

“I’ve contemplated it, yeah,” Gunn recently told the Happy Sad Confused podcast when asked about bringing Pattinson’s Batman into the more fantastical DCU. “I contemplate everything, we talk about everything. You’d be an idiot not to.” However, Gunn said that he and DC Studios are “committed” to telling Elseworlds stories like Reeves’ universe that has grown to include The Penguin.

“I want the freedom to tell Elseworlds stories. We want to be able to tell a story in which Superman is very different [from his DCU counterpart],” Gunn said. “We want to play with these characters in different ways. One of the things I love about DC over Marvel comic books is that those things are much more plentiful — there’s many more Elseworlds stories, there’s many more presentations of Wonder Woman, and Batman, and Superman, especially, that you see them showing up in different ways in different Elseworlds stories. I think that’s part of the fun of DC.”

“The Batman’s not a stepchild. It’s all under DC. We are fully invested in the success of The Batman just like we are everything else,” Safran said during the DC Studios slate reveal in 2023, with Gunn adding that “everything is going to be balanced so The Brave and the Bold is not going to be coming out in the same six-month period as The Batman [2].”

Warner Bros. has scheduled The Batman 2 for Oct. 1, 2027. The Brave and the Bold doesn’t have a release date, and the project won’t be officially greenlit until there’s a script.