The Batman director says Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne was inspired by Kurt Cobain

You might recall that the first trailer for The Batman was accompanied by a version of Nirvana’s Something In The Way, but the influence of the iconic rock band goes much further. While speaking with Empire, The Batman director and co-writer Matt Reeves said that Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain actually inspired this latest incarnation of Bruce Wayne.

When I write, I listen to music, and as I was writing the first act, I put on Nirvana’s ‘Something In The Way’. That’s when it came to me that, rather than make Bruce Wayne the playboy version we’ve seen before, there’s another version who had gone through a great tragedy and become a recluse. So I started making this connection to Gus Van Sant’s Last Days, and the idea of this fictionalised version of Kurt Cobain being in this kind of decaying manor.

Matt Reeves was convinced that Robert Pattinson was the right choice for a Kurt Cobain-infused Bruce Wayne in The Batman when he first saw Good Time by the Safdie Brothers. “In that movie you could really feel his vulnerability and desperation, but you could also feel his power,” Reeves explained. “I thought that was a great mix. He’s also got that Kurt Cobain thing, where he looks like a rock star, but you also feel like he could be a recluse.” Although The Batman has been designed on a standalone movie, there’s obviously the hope that it will grow into something bigger. “As the first standalone Batman in ten years, the hope is we can lay a foundation that you can build stories upon,” producer Dylan Clark recently said.

The Batman stars Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne/The Batman, with Jeffrey Wright playing James Gordon, Paul Dano playing the Riddler, Zoe Kravitz playing Selina Kyle, Andy Serkis playing Alfred, John Turturro playing Carmine Falcone, Peter Sarsgaard playing Gotham D.A. Gil Colson, and Colin Farrell playing Oswald Cobblepot aka the Penguin. The Batman is set to hit theaters on March 4, 2022.