Remember the creepy dude from Denis Villeneuve’s crime-thriller Prisoners? The dude that Hugh Jackman locks up in a make-shift cage and beats the crap out of. Well, it looks like he’s going to be playing The Riddler in The Batman.
Collider reports that Paul Dano has been cast as Edward Nashton AKA The Riddler in Matt Reeves’ The Batman. For the longest time, it was reported that Jonah Hill (Wolf of Wall Street, Moneyball) was in talks to play an iconic Batman villain. While it first we assumed Hill was in talks to play Penguin, later there were speculations that the talented actor was actually one of the front runners to play The Riddler. However, news broke yesterday that Hill has exited the project for reasons that have not yet been confirmed.
While it Jonah Hill’s departure is a huge loss, it looks like everything has worked out nicely either way. Paul Dano (Prisoners, Okja, 12 Years a Slave) is a solid actor who can emit a very creepy vibe and wear a face that you’d like to see get punched… repeatedly. Dano will more than likely be a very different Riddler than Jim Carey’s over the top version in Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever. Reeves’ film is said to be a grounded and gritty neo-noir crime-thriller.
Paul Dano will be joining Robert Pattinson as Batman, Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman and Jeffrey Wright as Commissioner Gordon. The Batman is set to go on floors at the end of the year and will be released in the summer of 2021.
