With production on The Batman about to kick off ahead of its 2021 bow, Matt Reeves keeps unveiling cast members to increasing delight, two weeks ago, it was John Turturro playing Carmine Falcone and now he’s announced that Peter Sarsgaard will also be joining the cast in the tweet below:
Oh… Hi, Peter… 🦇 pic.twitter.com/GsS2ktuWxE
— Matt Reeves (@mattreevesLA) December 6, 2019
Unlike his previous recent tweets, which announced specific characters attached to the actors, like Catwoman, Penguin, and Edward Nashton (The Riddler), Reeves is staying pretty mum about who Sarsgaard will play. Though that doesn’t keep speculation and reports from running rampant already, for example, our friends at THR seem to think he’s either playing a corrupt cop named Wasserman or Harvey Dent/Two-Face.
While speculation for the latter is fueled by earlier reports that Two-Face features in the film, it also got teased just a little more by an Instagram post from Sarsgaard’s wife Maggie Gyllenhaal this week:
But you know how those teases go…still, Sarsgaard is a pretty inspired bit of casting regardless of the role. A fine actor, whose only foray into superhero films was unfortunately 2011’s Green Lantern where he played a particularly overcooked Hector Hammond. It’ll be nice to see him attached to something that’s shaping up to be far better…but when we’re talking about one of the worst superhero movies of all time…there’s really nowhere to go but up, isn’t there?
For what it’s worth, Wasserman is a wholly new character, so not much to go off there. On the other hand, if he’s playing Harvey Dent, he’d be following in the footsteps of the great Tommy Lee Jones (himself no stranger to giving a bad performance in a not very good superhero movie) and Aaron Eckhart.
How many more villains can we get in this thing? Maybe the Mad Hatter will be next! Either way, The Batman opens June 25, 2021.