The Batman Stops Production After Robert Pattinson ‘Tests Positive For Coronavirus’
Published
| Last updated
The Batman has been put on hold once again as star Robert Pattinson is said to have tested positive for coronavirus.
The new superhero movie was first shut down in March following the outbreak of coronavirus, and after months of waiting production finally resumed near London a few days ago.
Fans were treated to a tantalising peek at Pattinson in action when the first trailer was released towards the end of last month, but just as excitement began to grow things were brought to a grinding halt.
Warner Bros. released a statement explaining that ‘a member of The Batman production has tested positive for COVID-19′, though the company did not mention anyone by name. The statement added that the person who tested positive ‘is isolating in accordance with established protocols’, and that ‘filming is temporarily paused’ as a result.
Though Warner Bros. would not comment on any individual worker’s health, a ‘highly placed source’ told Vanity Fair it was Pattinson himself who had come down with the virus.
Production would have likely come to a halt regardless of who on the team caught coronavirus, as anyone in close contact with the person who tested positive could be at risk of contracting the disease, but the temporary pause is even more necessary considering it would prove very difficult to film The Batman without Batman.
It’s unclear whether the pause will cause a bigger delay to the film’s release, which was already pushed back from June 2021 to October 2021 due to the initial halt in filming.
Director Matt Reeves said about a quarter of the movie had been shot before shutdowns in March, Sky News reports, and The Batman was one of the first major productions to resume in the UK after the government gave the go-ahead in May for filming to restart.
New guidelines for productions, drawn up by the British Film Commission and the British Film Institute, outline rules on physical distancing, safety training and temperature tests.
The film follows Batman has he tries to solve a series of gruesome serial killings, and Reeves recently described the events as a ‘criminological experiment’.
Speaking at the DC Fandome event that revealed the new trailer, he commented:
He’s trying to figure out what he can do to finally change this place. You see that he’s charting what he’s doing, and he’s seeing he isn’t having any of the effect that he wants to have yet.
The murders start to happen, and the murders start to describe a history of Gotham. It only reinforces what he knows about Gotham, but opens up a whole world of corruption that went much further.
Working alongside Pattinson in The Batman are Colin Farrell as The Penguin, Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman, Paul Dano as The Riddler, Andy Serkis as Alfred and Jeffrey Wright as Commissioner Gordon.
Hopefully Pattinson will make a full and fast recovery.
If you have a story you want to tell, send it to UNILAD via [email protected]
Topics: Celebrity, Coronavirus, COVID-19, Now, Robert Pattinson, The Batman, Warner Bros
.png)
