At long last, the first trailer for Matt Reeves' The Batman has arrived, unleashed to the eager
masses at the end of DC FanDome on Saturday, August 22, 2020.
For a two-and-a-half-minute clip, The Batman trailer presents a lot of broad moving parts
but not a lot of answers. Still, there are a few subtle details that may have slipped
under your radar.
As we see Commissioner Gordon and the Dark Knight investigate a murder scene wallpapered
with political newspaper clippings, one headline in particular stands out: "Maroni Drug Bust!"
While he may not stand tall among the ranks of the Caped Crusader's colorful super-powered
rogues gallery, mob boss Sal Maroni has loomed large over the street-level corners of the
Batman mythos ever since his first appearance on the comics page in 1942. His most distinctive
accomplishment in the canon? Splashing District Attorney Harvey Dent with the acid that would
transform him into Two-Face.
The character has been brought to life a few times on screen: Dennis Paladino filled the
brief role in Batman Forever, and The Dark Knight saw Eric Roberts playing Maroni as
a key figure in Dent's downfall. On the small screen, meanwhile, David Zayas appeared as
Maroni across eight episodes of Gotham.
We don't yet know if Sal Maroni himself has a part to play in the story of The Batman,
but his frequent rival, Carmine Falcone, will be played in the film by John Turturro.
At the end of the trailer, audiences get a flash of an obscure sort-of number-slash-code:
"?0?1." Take the question marks out of the sequence and replace them with the digits
that they look like — 2 — and you'll get "2021." This refers to The Batman's current
release date of October 1, 2021, but it's also a pretty clear-cut reference to the film's
main villain, the Riddler.
Though the Riddler is only briefly pictured during the trailer, we do know that he's played
by Paul Dano, and it's apparent that he'll spend the duration of The Batman psychologically
tormenting the Caped Crusader.
Beyond the Maroni reference and the tease that the Riddler is going to be the Big Bad
of The Batman, the trailer is thin on substantial Easter eggs and intra-canon references. That
said, there were a few moments that caught our attention that may or may not be meaningful.
"I'm vengeance."
First off, Batman declaring "I am vengeance" could be a callback to a well-loved line from
Batman: The Animated Series:
"I am vengeance! I am the night! I am Batman!"
Perhaps the full quote in the film includes some of that same dialogue as well.
There's also the shot of newspaper clippings from the Gotham Gazette and The Gotham Times
with the word "LIES" painted over them. Those clippings are from stories about Gotham Mayor
Don Mitchell Jr., who made fictional history by winning a third mayoral term. In the film,
Jayme Lawson will portray a Gotham City mayoral candidate named Bella Reál. Is the surname
"Reál" a not-so-sly hint that she's genuine and Mitchell Jr. was a phony? And moreover,
who is Don Mitchell Jr.? The only man with that name who has any kind of association
with the Batman universe that we could find is Donald O. Mitchell, a sound engineer who
was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on 1995's Batman Forever. This is probably
a stretch but there could be something to chew on here.
Additionally, in the scene in which a group of face-paint-wearing men square up against
Batman, there can be spotted a young man whose face is only half painted. He stands out amongst
the crowd members, who have their whole faces covered in black and white paint with various
designs. Could this boy's inclusion in The Batman be a reference to Two-Face?
Finally, there's the matter of a mystery man who pops up on two separate occasions. In
one scene, he's simply staring down the camera with a menacing look on his face, and in the
other, he's behind the wheel of a car that's being pursued. The character is fairly nondescript,
and he doesn't really look like anyone on the Batman cast list, and the closest guess
we can make would be that he's Oswald "Oz" Cobblepot — aka Penguin – played by Colin
Farrell. That's a big leap and probably isn't correct, but there's a chance that it might
be him.
Sadly, it'll be a fairly long wait for all the unknowns to be resolved. The Batman will
swoop into cinemas on October 1, 2021.
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