Andy Serkis Says The Batman Will Be Another Matt Reeves 'Masterpiece'
Andy Serkis and Matt Reeves worked together on the "Planet of the Apes" reboot trilogy, in which Serkis portrayed the highly expressive lead ape, Caesar, via motion capture. It's one of those rare movie trilogies that is solid all the way through, with the middle installment, "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes," being especially great. For "The Batman," Serkis and Reeves are reuniting, and this time, Serkis is playing a human character, the butler Alfred Pennyworth, opposite Robert Pattinson's Bruce Wayne.
We're not that far removed from Jeremy Irons or even Michael Caine as Alfred, and there are other good actors, like Hammer horror veteran Michael Gough, who have portrayed Alfred in live-action over the years. Given his past collaborations with Reeves, Serkis wasn't unduly intimidated to take on the role of Batman's butler and closest confidante.
He recently spoke with The Hollywood Reporter, and while he was relatively tight-lipped about what fans can expect from his portrayal of Alfred, he did say:
"I'll tell you that it was fantastic being reunited with Matt Reeves, [producer] Dylan Clark and [VFX supervisor] Dan Lemmon from the Apes films. We had such a great time making it, and when it eventually comes to the screen, Matt Reeves will have made another masterpiece film because he's so super invested in it. But yeah, I've been forbidden, expressly forbidden, to talk about Alfred."
Batman: Let There Be Alfred
The reason we're hearing this now is because Serkis is out making the publicity rounds for another comic book movie, "Venom: Let There Be Carnage," which he directed. Serkis is one of those filmmakers involved in a bit of creative bigamy with both DC and Marvel. Like J.K. Simmons, he's got one foot in the Bat-Verse and one foot in the Spider-Verse — or Venom-Verse, as he and Tom Hardy insist on calling it.
For Serkis, it's not even his first Marvel franchise, since he portrayed Ulysses Klaue in "Avengers: Age of Ultron" and "Black Panther" and recently voiced the same role in Marvel's animated series, "What If...?" We also heard him in voiceover — but didn't see much of him onscreen — in the DC FanDome teaser for "The Batman" last year, so it's too early to know what direction they're going with his Alfred.
Serkis has shown that he can bulk up a bit as Klaue, and personally, I think it would be cool to see an Alfred like the one on the "Batman: Earth One" graphic novel, where's he's got a buzzcut, beard, and cane, and is not averse to slapping Batman around a little. A new trailer for "The Batman" will debut at this year's FanDome event, while the movie is scheduled to hit theaters on March 4, 2022.