‘The Batman’ and the Potential of Catwoman
No big-screen star has had the chance to complete a multi-film arc with the character, so could Zoe Kravitz be the first?
Batman won’t be traversing the rooftops of Gotham City alone. Tuesday we learned that Zoe Kravitz has joined the cast of Matt Reeves’ The Batman as Selina Kyle aka Catwoman. Kravitz joins the previously reported Robert Pattinson and Jeffrey Wright in the latest Batman reboot that will focus on the Dark Knight’s detective skills as he’s caught in a mystery involving a variety of his rogues gallery. While Reeves has been tight-lipped about his vision so far, the emphasis he’s placed on The Batman as a grounded, noir-inspired, multi-character mystery recalls Jeph Loeb’s famed Batman storylines, The Long Halloween (1996), Dark Victory (1999), and Hush (2002), all of which featured Catwoman prominently. Following the footsteps of the previous cinematic portrayals of Selina Kyle by Lee Meriwether, Michelle Pfeiffer and Anne Hathaway, Kravitz stands to bring something new to Batman’s feline fiend and frequent love interest.
When it comes to Batman characters, Catwoman’s history is as storied as the Caped Crusader himself. From her role in Batman-centric comics beginning with Batman No. 1 (1940), her own self-titled series, and as a member of the Gotham City Sirens, we’ve seen her undergo a variety of incarnations and straddle the lines of the law as adversary, antihero, and Justice League affiliated superhero, all of which have strengthened her connection to Batman as another mirror image within his long list of relationships. And like Batman, there have been no shortage of excellent cinematic portrayals of the character in both television and film. Beyond the aforementioned cinematic portrayals, Batman’s Julie Newmar and Eartha Kitt, and Gotham’s Camren Bicondova have all leant themselves to Selina’s live action portrayals, while Adrienne Barbeau, Gina Gershon, Eliza Dushku, and Zoe Kravitz herself have all lent their voices to the character’s numerous animated depictions.
Kravitz’s position may seem like a challenge given all the various media portrayals, but much like Batman himself, Catwoman is greater than any one portrayal. As popular as Catwoman is, no actress has ever had a chance to explore her role across multiple entries, something Kravitz will hopefully be able to do should The Batman lead to a new franchise. So what is it that I hope to see from this new Catwoman, given the likelihood of her arc being spread across multiple films? Given The Batman will feature Bruce Wayne a few years into his career as Batman, it would make sense for Selina to be in the same position. We don’t need an origin story. Instead it would be more interesting for Batman and Catwoman to already have a history, and the scars to show it. One of the things that stands out about Kravitz’s casting is that there is a worldliness to her, a sense of life experience without a shade of naivete. It’s easy to imagine her Catwoman as well acquainted with the ins and outs of Gotham, with her own ties to the criminals like the Penguin and the Riddler. If Pfeiffer’s Catwoman in Batman Returns (1992) was the supernatural seductress and Hathaway’s in The Dark Knight Rises (2012) was the Classic Hollywood femme fatale, Kravitz’s casting suggests a something more modern, closer to Hathaway’s Selina but with an agenda far greater than clearing her criminal record and getting wealthy.
With characters like Catwoman who been around for so long there is always a desire to bring something new to the table. We’ve seen Batman and Catwoman chasing each other across rooftops before and it’s iconic and a good start. But Kravitz has it in her to play on more than familiar beats, and her casting suggests something other than the traditional route. To see Selina’s transition from Catwoman to crime boss would allow a new avenue of Bat and Cat’s relationship to be explored on screen, and would ensure that Kravitz’s Catwoman could sustain an arc as lengthy and memorable as the Batman himself.
