As with every new iteration of the Caped Crusader, there has been plenty of hype surrounding Matt Reeves’ The Batman. The excitement comes with good reason, though, as the film touts Robert Pattinson as Batman, Andy Serkis as its Alfred Pennyworth and Paul Dano’s Riddler as its primary antagonist. And with its March release date creeping ever closer, a slew of trailers has been released, with new footage being revealed in each successive look at the films. With that being the case, fans have been eagerly dissecting every single shot with hopes of uncovering important details.
All of that notwithstanding, The Batman has done something that most Hollywood films have struggled to do in recent years. Unlike Spider-Man: No Way Home and its widely known spoilers, The Batman has been able to keep most of its plot details under wraps. That, however, hasn’t stopped various theories and rumors from circulating, and based on the combined evidence from two separate trailers, The Riddler and Bruce Wayne may have spent their childhoods together.
A new trailer, titled “The Bat and the Cat” just dropped, and as the title indicates, it prominently featured Batman and Selina Kyle. That wasn’t the only new footage in the trailer, though, because fans also got to see some new shots of The Riddler. Regardless of all that, the most noteworthy thing in the trailer was a piece of audio. While the camera showed various shots of the question-marked coffee cup, Batman and Bruce Wayne, The Riddler and Batman had a voiceover conversation that could have major ramifications.
The Riddler was busy telling Batman how the hero was a part of the grand corruption in Gotham, but Batman was confused and asked how he was involved. At the question, The Riddler became amused and said, “Oh, you’re really not as smart as I thought you were, Bruce Wayne.” That unequivocally means that The Riddler -- unlike most people in Gotham -- knew Batman’s secret identity. That’s significant because of rumors that tie the Wayne family to Gotham’s underworld or even the Court of Owls. And if that turns out to be true, it would be the perfect way to make Bruce complicit in their crimes and would explain The Riddler’s accusations here.
From there, the natural question should be how The Riddler knew that Batman was Bruce Wayne, and the international trailer may provide a hint. At one point in the trailer, someone searched The Riddler’s house and found a bunch of newspapers hanging on the wall. Those clippings showed what appeared to be The Riddler as a kid (the singled-out child with a question mark around him). Around the child, whose name was Edward Nashton, was a large group of children. They were all dressed the same, and an easy assumption would be to say those photos were taken at the Gotham City Orphanage.
The interesting thing was that the Waynes were in the same photo, and nearby clippings showed Thomas, Martha and Bruce with their eyes scratched out. From that, it’s clear that The Riddler somehow knew the Waynes growing up, and for some reason, he can’t stand them now. That’s also probably how he knew Bruce. In fact, it’s even possible that the Waynes adopted Bruce and not Edward, causing jealousy.
Finally, there was one shot where “Where it all began” was spray-painted on a set of doors. A reasonable guess would be that that the shot was also from the orphanage. Something must have happened to Edward inside that room that made him hate the Waynes, and it seemed like Riddler was leading Batman back to that place to show the Caped Crusader what evils his parents had committed years before. Whether that's the case or not, The Riddler clearly has a vendetta against Gotham's most famous family, and it's probably for good reason.
To find out why The Riddler has it out for the Waynes, The Batman hits theaters on Mar. 4, 2022.