by ETHAN BECK
Staff Writer
On August 22nd, Warner Bros. released a trailer for The Batman, a film that means big things for the future of DC comics in films. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been widely successful, with Avengers Endgame making the most money a movie ever has in history. But after the Justice League failed at the box office in 2017, and The Batman starring Robert Pattinson instead of Ben Affleck, who has played the Batman in previous DC movies that shared a common universe, it appears that instead of trying to focus on copying what Marvel has worked on since 2008, DC will instead focus on making darker, solo stories instead of overlapping ones. And this movie seems to be even darker than The Dark Knight, a film very close to my heart. The trailer opens up with Batman being trusted by Jim Gordan (Jeffery Wright) and not many other cops in the GCPD, meaning that this Batman is only a year or two into being the caped crusader. More interesting though, is this dark performance of the Riddler (Paul Dano), a performance that seems to be giving the character a lot more credit than when he was last played by Jim Carrey. Instead of a lunatic in green spandex, this Riddler is a cryptic serial killer who leaves riddles and clues addressed specifically to Batman. While not the main antagonists, characters like Catwoman (Zoë Kravits) and Penguin (Colin Farrell) do make quick appearances in the trailer, before a closing with a brutal beat-down by Batman to showcase the choreography of the film, and the Riddler leaving a taunting message for Batman as he enters the bat-cave, takes off the mask to show a man who has been through hell. In the comics Batman has always been a dark detective story and I’m really excited for not only myself, but for others to see the physical and mental toll it takes on being the Batman in a city of killers, and the mystery he solves to fight villains crazier than him.