Zap! Pow! Batman producer defends Bat-star Robert Pattinson

Robert Pattinson,the Batman

The new Batman Robert Pattinson has been under sustained fire and online backlash since it was announced he would be donning the bat-cape and picking up the bat-keys to the batmobile.

But a new hero has emerged in the form of longtime Batman franchise producer Michael E. Uslan who has leapt to the defense of the former Twilight star.

Addressing the casting concerns from certain quarters he said, "The star of the Batman movies is Bruce Wayne. Batman is the star".

Uslan, who has been involved in nearly all of the Batman adaptations, including Tim Burton's 1989 classic and the recent Ben Affleck starring Justice League, was talking to an audience at a comic and pop culture convention in Cologne, Germany.

"Batman is who everyone wants to see, along with the supervillains," he continued. "So how does a filmmaker make the choice of which actor to cast? And I think the real key question for fans, and for all of us to focus on, is the filmmaker,

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"Trust the filmmaker and give the filmmaker, and the filmmaker's vision, the benefit of the doubt."

The filmmaker of the upcoming reboot is director Matt Reeves, whose most recent efforts include the two final chapters of the superb Planet of the Apes trilogy, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes in 2014 and War for the Planet of the Apes in 2017.

While details are still tightly under bat-wraps, Reeves has confirmed his bat-movie will not be an origin story.

"We're doing a story that is definitively Batman, though, and trying to tell a story that's emotional and yet is really about him being the world's greatest detective and all the things that for me, since I was a kid, made me love Batman."

The film is due out in 2021.