Appearing to be influenced by The Long Halloween, The Batman will feature multiple members of Bruce Wayne's rogues gallery, including Paul Dano's Riddler. It's easy to assume the Riddler will be the film's main antagonist; however, others have speculated he could play another role, with Reddit user 123_456_789_420 believing the Riddler will point Batman in the direction of his true enemies: the Court of Owls.
This theory posits that instead of playing a villain in a superhero movie, the Riddler will be a trope from another genre: the client in a noir story. He'll come to Batman with a case that sets him up to deal with the Court. The theory suggests that the Riddler will be an investigator himself, which is at odds with the early glimpses of him in the trailer, where he looks like a killer out of a David Fincher movie. However, this direction isn't uncalled for given his comic history, where he served as a private investigator during Paul Dini's run on Detective Comics.
The crux of this theory is that the Riddler discovers the Court of Owls and their influence on Gotham. Realizing he can't take them on himself, he recruits Batman to do it for him, after sizing him up and realizing he's not a member of the Court.
If this is true, it'd change the relationship between Batman and the Riddler from rivals to allies. Instead of a cat-and-mouse game, they would have an uneasy alliance against a threat bigger than both of them. It would create a different kind of tension between the two characters as well. In spite of their common enemy, Batman would be foolish to trust the Riddler. While a seasoned Dark Knight would be aware of this, the younger Wayne Robert Pattinson's playing is another story.
For his part, the Riddler's need to be the smartest guy in the room could also sabotage his attempt to take down the Court. Even though he may want to take them down, his desire to know Batman's secret identity is something that could doom their partnership. Given how violent this Batman has shown himself to be in the trailer, this could be the Riddler's undoing.
There's no indication the Court will be involved in The Batman, outside of a possible teaser in the trailer. Making the Court the main antagonist of the story also threatens to overstuff a film that will already need to introduce Catwoman, the Penguin and Jim Gordon, in addition to Batman and the Riddler.
However, it's possible The Batman's Riddler could set up the Court as the antagonists for another chapter in the series, since Director Matt Reeves plans this to be a trilogy. The big reveal of a secret society for Batman to fight against would be a great cliffhanger to end chapter one with.
Introducing the Court as the true antagonists would set the new Batman film apart from its predecessors. Instead of going back to the well for another version of the Joker or Two-Face, Matt Reeves could introduce something new to Batman's cinematic rogues gallery.
The Court's role in Gotham's corruption could also tie into another influence of the film: Chinatown. The line, "Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown," enforces this film's main theme, which is that the corrupt never face the consequences of their crimes because they're protected by the system, and this could also be the driving force behind the Riddler, who's tired of Gotham's corruption.
The Batman misdirecting audiences by making the Riddler a secondary antagonist or even ally would be a bold move, but it's not unprecedented. Christopher Nolan did something similar in Batman Begins, when the Scarecrow wound up being a secondary antagonist in comparison to Ra's Al Ghul and the League of Shadows.
The Riddler introducing the Court of Owls is as good a guess as any about what Reeves has planned for The Batman. Whether Warner Bros. actually takes the franchise in this direction is another story, one that fans should be able to see in March of 2022.
Directed by Matt Reeves and written by Reeves and Mattson Tomlin, The Batman stars Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth, Jeffrey Wright as James Gordon, Zoë Kravitz as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Colin Farrell as Oswald Cobblepot/The Penguin, Paul Dano as Edward Nashton/The Riddler, John Turturro as Carmine Falcone and Peter Sarsgaard as District Attorney Gil Colson. The film arrives in theaters March 4, 2022.