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Each Batman movie actor receives their own cape and cowl, which are uniquely made to match both their demands and the franchise’s needs at the time. It’s the reason why Val Kilmer and George Clooney ended up donning Batsuits in Joel Schumacher’s campier, more flamboyant take on the Caped Crusader and Gotham City, much like Michael Keaton’s Bat-duds reflect the gothic, expressionist tone of Tim Burton’s Batman films. These suits featured built-in abs, pecs, and even nipples.
For Zack Snyder’s dark, brutal interpretation of the Batman universe, Ben Affleck wore a Bat costume roughly based on Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns,” but Matt Reeves, the director of “The Batman,” opted for a more practical look for Robert Pattinson’s portrayal of the masked vigilante.
The Batsuit is ‘like a Russian pressure suit’
The latter remembered that Reeves “wanted to play towards [the Batsuit] feeling very real, and I remember him mentioning how he wanted Batman to have freedom of movement, and he wanted him to be able to fight like an MMA fighter” in /Film’s interview with costume designers David Crossman and Glyn Dillon. This is also evident in the several tactical models taken from real-world situations that Pattinson’s law enforcement attire in the film was based on.
When creating Pattinson’s Batsuit, movement was a key consideration, as Dillon underlined in our chat with him. In contrast to Keaton’s original, notoriously bulky and restricting Bat-costume, which frequently required him to turn his entire body only to look in a different direction, Reeves intended to optimise Pattinson’s outfit’s functionality in line with his realistically oriented vision for “The Batman.”
“Matt (Reeves) wants everything to feel like it has a purpose, so with the suit we came up with this idea of it being a bit like a Russian pressure suit. The lacing detail up the side and back is based on what pilots would wear. And we’ve got elastic in the back so they can fight and stretch and punch freely. It’s not a real protective suit, but when we met with Robert Alonso, the head stunt coordinator, he was saying that it reminded him of an equestrian vest, which he said is one of the best protective vests a stuntman can wear because it’s got similar kind of breaks in it, so that you’ve got a lot of mobility. And it’s got pauldrons in the chest plate so, in theory, Batman will be protected from bullets and what have you.”
In The Art of The Batman by James Field, Dillon compares the movie’s Batsuit to a Russian pressure suit.
According to “The Batman” “The Batman” supervising costume effects modeller Pierre Bohanna, a lot of the panelling you see [in the Batsuit] is very much taken from the ideas of ballistic shielding, etcetera, that is woven into that. It appears to be stitched together and fashioned of leather after the cowl, so the mechanical components are essentially placed on top, the man continued.
Batman’s wingsuit got a similar makeover
When making Pattinson’s utility belt, Dillon used a similar process, thinking that “it would be wonderful if [Bruce Wayne] used equipment that you could obtain like from ex-military or police force.” As a result, “The Batman” substitutes a “really practical-looking, black leather, very realistic belt because it’s from the real world” for Keaton’s yellow utility belt’s more vibrant, ornamental appearance. He also made reference to the fact that in Burton’s Batman movies, Keaton was famed for being unable to move his neck, which is why he inserted “things that are almost like vertebrae” in the neck of Pattinson’s Bat-cowl to give him “that full motion.”
Remember that Dillon isn’t criticising Keaton’s Batsuit per se; rather, he is pointing out that the actor’s outfit was designed with the heightened universe of Burton’s comic book flicks in mind, and it would be absurd to wear it in a film like “The Batman.” This includes his wingsuit, which Keaton’s Batman would construct out of his cape whenever he wanted to flee quickly without giving any meaningful explanation for how he did it. Christian Bale’s Batman uses a wingsuit, but Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins” came up with a sci-fi explanation for how it works (his cape is made of “memory cloth,” allowing it to be reshaped into a glider with the help of an electrical current), whereas “The Batman” called for something a little more grounded.
“Whereas in the previous Batman films you have [Batman’s cape] kind of miraculously turning into a glider, it doesn’t quite feel that realistic. Matt really wanted it to feel like Bruce Wayne has worked out a way of making this thing that he wears on his back all the time have some practical use.”
As Dillon stated:
“You’ve not really seen it in a city, and you’ve certainly not seen it with an iconic character running away from the cops in the night, crashing to the streets below. It always has to come out of character, why is he actually putting this into his arsenal? And if you can’t answer that then you’re in trouble.”
Producer Dylan Clark described the movie’s wingsuit as “amazing,” adding that it was crucial for this aspect of the Batsuit to make sense from the first time Pattinson’s Caped Crusader uses it:
