The new Batman Robert Pattinson – “Battinson” – won’t swing into action or lurk in shadows as the Dark Knight until late next year. But if you like his movies you won’t have to wait very long (God and COVID willing) to see him on the big screen again.
Pattinson is in another little blockbuster this summer, Tenet, from Warner Bros. Directed by the groundbreaking Dark Knight trilogy auteur Christopher Nolan, the film’s trailer suggests it has a trippy, self-serious groove similar to Nolan’s 2010 picture Inception.
Related: Legendary Batman Writer and Editor Denny O’Neil Has Died
Beyond wondering if Tenet is a sequel to Inception, enough people are curious if the unreleased thriller involves the time-honored trope of time travel that the issue needed to be addressed.
Pattinson did just that in his massive GQ interview – the one where he blew up a microwave with his amateur-hour cooking and confessed to “barely doing anything” in prep for playing Bruce Wayne.
The actor shared there is no timey-wimey sojourning in Tenet, sadly.
“He’s not a time traveler. There’s actually no time traveling. [laughs] That’s, like, the one thing I’m approved to say,” he said.
In general, Pattinson has to watch what he lets slip during interviews. He added his publicist regularly has to check if there are any “fires” that have to be put out due to extreme candor.
Related – Rumor: A New Joker is Being Introduced in Matt Reeves’ The Batman Universe
Pattinson also revealed he hasn’t seen the finished cut which doesn’t make a difference contractually or when trying to describe what Tenet is like. “Even if I had seen it, I genuinely don’t know if I’d be able to,” he said.
“This thing, it’s so insane,” he continued before adding the film has the globe-hopping scale of Batman Begins and Inception.
Says Pattinson:
“And in each country there’s, like, an enormous set-piece scene, which is like the climax of a normal movie. In every single country.”
Related: A Concept Model Shows the Batmobile in The Batman in Full Detail
Back to the Future
By the sound of it, nobody so much as gasses up a DeLorean in Tenet which is somewhat of a bummer – not that it speaks ill of the film’s quality.
Still, why wouldn’t people think Tenet has time travel? All the cool-kid-on-the-block franchises are doing it, for one thing.
Marvel with Avengers: Endgame, X-Men in Days of Future Past, Deadpool, that moribund and hobbling old standby Terminator. Zack Snyder’s Justice League was even going to dabble in it and there’s hope that it makes it into the Snyder Cut on HBO Max.
Our loyal readers ought to remember Godzilla beat them all to the punch in the Heisei period’s Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah. (Yes, I understand Terminator did it first but it didn’t technically become a franchise until T2 in 1992. Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah came out in ’91, so there.)
Tenet is set for a July release but the trailer labels it as coming soon in case of further delay.