Matt Reeves’s new action movie The Batman is one of the darkest adaptations of the Caped Crusader that we’ve ever seen. Violent, brooding, and downright mopey, it’s hard to imagine this version of Batman even smiling, let alone recruiting a brightly costumed teenage sidekick and yet Reeves did slip in a small Easter egg that teases Robin.
Warning: minor spoilers for The Batman ahead. Still with us? Well, don’t say you weren’t warned. Anyway, towards the end of the movie Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz) mentions a city called Blüdhaven. Ominous name aside, Blüdhaven is a very important location in the DC Comics universe. Just a short drive from Batman’s home, the city is somehow worse than Gotham in almost every way imaginable.
Blüdhaven is a poor city that’s become a hotbed for crime, and unlike Gotham, it doesn’t have a pointy-eared vigilante looking out for it. Or it didn’t until Dick Grayson, the first Robin, had a falling out with Bruce Wayne. Abandoning the Robin identity, Dick became Nightwing and moved out of Wayne Manor to Blüdhaven.
There, Nightwing began his own war on crime, becoming the city’s very first vigilante. Now, do we think that Reeves is about to introduce Nightwing or Robin in the next movie? Not at all. It’s probably a fun little reference to get comic book readers twitching in their seats.
Of course, Matt Reeves hasn’t been shy about saying this establishes a new Batman Universe, so it’s possible Warner Bros is thinking about the future of the franchise. Perhaps in the promised, but not officially announced, ‘The Batman 2‘, we’ll see Bruce pick up an orphan? I mean, we all saw the way he looked at the mayor’s kid. He was desperate to get him in a cape and fighting crime.
The Batman is in theatres now.