First Detailed Image Released Of Paul Dano As The Riddler In Robert Pattinson’s The Batman
Fans reckon the terrifying Gotham villain looks eerily similar to a real-world serial killer that terrorised California for years.
Paul Dano's Riddler for The Batman has finally been revealed in stunning detail.
We've only had a few glimpses of the notorious Gotham villain in clips shared by Warner Bros, however this is our first proper look at the character who will be terrorising the Caped Crusader.
The image shared by the movie studio shows The Riddler has a dark green, baggy jacket with a simple question mark on the side.
Paul Dano's character also has black gloves and pants and is capped off with an ominous, dark green face mask.
It's a humungous deviation from the one seen in Batman Forever, where by Jim Carrey was dressed in a tight, bright green morph suit that was decorated with question marks. He also had bright red hair and a cane.
Matt Reeves' The Batman is expected to be a very dark retelling of the classic superhero and it looks like he wanted to make the villains extra creepy too.
They've done the same with fellow villain Penguin.
Danny DeVito was dressed in extraordinary fashion for Batman Returns to play the underworld figure, however trailers for The Batman show Colin Farrell's character will stick closer to the original comic book imagining of the bad guy.
The Riddler has been described as a 'serial killer who targets Gotham's elite while feeding puzzles about his crimes to law enforcement'.
Many people have drawn parallels between Dano's new take on the baddie and the Zodiac Killer, the pseudonym of a serial killer who murdered at least five - but possibly as many as 37 - people in Northern California throughout the 1960s and 70s, taunting police in a series of letters and cards that included mysterious ciphers.
Speaking about the Riddler's new look on Twitter, one fan wrote: "I really like that he looks like the Zodiac Killer which is very fitting for the Riddler."
Many others agreed, with another saying: "I said the exact same. Looks like the Zodiac Killer."
A third said: "I was about to post this! But yea I really like how they look very similar! It's very creepy but cool."
Some of the drawings of the Zodiac killer showed him with a similar but more boxy mask on his head as well as a baggy jacket that had a symbol in the middle of it.
Director Matt Reeves said these comparisons were intentional and he thought it was 'very powerful and provocative' to imagine a real-world killer in the streets of Gotham.
Writer Anthony Borrelli added: "The elements presented in the teaser trailer portray Riddler as a sadistic killer looking to strike fear into the citizens of Gotham. These traits, when paired with his appearance, point to Riddler becoming Gotham's very own Zodiac Killer, a notorious serial killer in the San Francisco Bay area during the 1970s who was never captured.
"Matt Reeves' decision to base his version of the Riddler on this notorious killer is inspired, as it utilizes the Riddler's most interesting characteristics and pairs them with those of a real-life super villain who terrorized a city and brought the police to their knees."
The Batman will be released on March 4 this year.
Featured Image Credit: Warner Bros.
Topics: the riddler, paul dano, Entertainment, TV and Film, The Batman
Stewart Perrie