It hasn’t been a great week for Warner Bros, who are in the middle of trying to get Christopher Nolan‘s Tenet out to U.S. theaters today despite multiple delays, middling reviews and industry pushback, when word comes from the UK set of Matt Reeves‘ The Batman that a crew member has tested positive for COVID-19.
UPDATE: Vanity Fair has reported that it was the film’s star, Robert Pattinson, who plays the title character who tested positive which means it’s likely to hold up production for a minimum of two weeks while he’s quarantined.
2nd UPDATE (Friday 9/4): It’s being reported that Reeves will continue to film what they can without Pattinson, as he quarantines for two week. With three months to go, the production still has too much else to shoot to just outright shut down, so they’ll probably take a few days off and resume once others that have come in contact with the actor have been tested and cleared.
The show had only just resumed filming at Leavesden Studios outside London three days ago after shutting down 5 1/2 months ago with only 25% of the movie filmed and another three months to go. Once again, production has been halted for an indeterminate amount of time.
Warner Bros. released the following statement, being careful to maintain the privacy of the worker who tested positive and the general situation:
“A member of The Batman production has tested positive for Covid-19, and is isolating in accordance with established protocols. Filming is temporarily paused.”
Roughly two weeks ago, Reeves debuted the first trailer for The Batman at the fan event DC Fandome, talking at length about the direction he’s taking the Caped Crusader with actor Robert Pattinson under the cowl.
Below the Line has been keeping track of all the show openings and closings over the past few months with London and the UK thought to be one of the safer places to be working with the restart of Universal’s Jurassic World: Dominion. That show had its own problems when a few of the crew who had flown to Malta for anther part of the shoot tested positive for COVID.
The Batman is scheduled for release on October 1, 2021 or about thirteen months from today.
This is a developing story, so check back for updates as we have them.