The caped crusader swoops into the Chinese market to give domestic theaters a welcome boost amid ongoing challenges caused by the pandemic, Xu Fan reports.

A scene in the new Batman film shows the titular superhero, portrayed by Robert Pattinson, with his iconic black cape flapping against the dark night. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Amid the country's ongoing COVID-19 resurgence, more than half of China's cinemas have been closed since last week. But in its latest cinematic reboot, Batman, one of the most iconic American comic book heroes, has found a way to captivate Chinese audiences.

As of Thursday, the movie, which was released domestically on March 18, had grossed around 120 million yuan ($18.9 million), usurping Tom Holland's adventure epic Uncharted to grab the top spot in the country's box-office rankings in its opening week.

In this story, you are meeting him in a place where he’s still figuring out what it means to be Batman.

Matt Reeves, director of The Batman

Currently earning a score of 7.6 points out of 10 on the review-aggregation site Douban, The Batman, aside from being a dark avenger, has become a sort of "rescuer", giving a boost — albeit not as big as industry insiders had hoped — to a sluggish market that is struggling from a shortage of blockbusters and the effects of regional theater closures due to the pandemic.

Making his debut in the monthly American comic series Detective Comics in 1939, Batman — whose secret identity is the billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne — has been portrayed by a string of A-list actors, with the likes of George Clooney, Christian Bale and Ben Affleck donning the iconic black cowl.

Robert Pattinson is the latest actor to play the masked crime fighter, protector of the fictional Gotham City. The new film spans around three hours, making it the longest-running Batman film in history. It follows the eponymous character as he teams up with James Gordon, one of the city's few upstanding police officers, to solve a string of mysterious murders and tackle one of Batman's classic adversaries, Riddler, portrayed here, not as the flamboyant comic book villain, but as a gritty criminal with an antisocial personality.

The movie stars Pattinson and actress Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman, who adds a romantic spark to the tale. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

During a recent premiere held in a downtown cinema in eastern Beijing, director Matt Reeves, alongside actors Pattinson, Colin Farrell and Paul Dano, shared some behind-the-scenes anecdotes with the Chinese audience via video.

Speaking about the movie being set two years after Bruce Wayne first put on the Batman's suit, Reeves says most of the previous Batman films and TV series usually depict either the masked vigilante's origin story, or when he has been the Batman for a long time.

"But in this story, you are meeting him in a place where he's still figuring out what it means to be Batman," explains Reeves, who cowrote the script with Peter Craig.

Tortured for years after witnessing the murder of his parents when he was a child, Batman in the new movie is more like a recluse, who is completely focused on fighting crime, rarely sparing time to run the Wayne family's business interests.

With few high-tech gadgets or weapons, this Batman is brought to life with a more humanized and fragile side, exemplified by scenes featuring him getting injured while fighting with a street gang or falling into temporary coma during a fierce conflict.

Deemed by some critics as a return to the iconic hero's detective roots — the character was originally conceived as such — Pattison's iteration of the Batman brings his sleuthing skills to the fore, figuring out the clues left by Dano's Riddler.

"You will see he is enduring a lot… He is still on the path to becoming the perfect Batman and 'the world's greatest detective'," says Reeves.

Pattinson, who accumulated many Chinese fans for his role as a pale-faced vampire in The Twilight Saga, echoes that his incarnation of Batman is different from previous on-screen versions, tapping more into his detective origins.

"When I read the script, I just thought he seemed very unusual. He had a very unusual moral code, and didn't really see himself as a true, clean hero. He didn't know exactly who he was yet," explains Pattinson.

A still from the film features Batman at a police station in the fictional Gotham City. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

With a lot of rainy scenes, the English actor reveals one of his biggest challenges during shooting was performing the much-lauded fight scenes wrapped in a heavy, wet cape.

American actor Dano recalls that his first conversation with Reeves gave an in-depth understanding of the script, which "defines heroes and villains as the two sides of trauma", he says.

"That is kind of the core emotional seed for the character (Riddler) from which everything else grows," he says.

"I have kept fueling myself with the comic books throughout the entire shoot. It is a way for me to always sort of be in contact with Batman and to look at his image as an idol. That relationship is important to me," he adds.

Irish actor Farrell, who plays another classic nemesis, Penguin, another iconic villain in Batman's history, reveals that it took him around six hours to wear the makeup, which made his performance easier, as it gave him "complete freedom of movement and expression".

Describing himself as a hardcore fan growing up watching various versions of Batman — from actor Adam West's 1960s classic TV show, to the trademark cinematic versions delivered by directors Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher — Farrell says he sees being part of the new movie, and stepping into the cinematic lineage of the Batman franchise, which has been popular for more than 80 years, as an honor.

In one of the moments that impressed him the most, Farrell reveals that he saw Pattinson — then acting in a scene with Batman's black cape flapping against the dark night — standing on a rooftop in London at around 2 am.

"It was a very surreal but genuinely magical experience," he recalls.

Despite the film satisfying the craving of many Chinese fans, following a yearlong absence of Hollywood's comic book hero movies in the local market, it's difficult to see The Batman creating a box-office bonanza — like that once enjoyed by most Marvel or DC comics-adapted tentpoles — amid the harsh situation currently facing the country's theaters, many insiders say.

Contact the writer at xufan@chinadaily.com.cn