With Todd Phillips’ bleak Scorsese homage having grossed over half a billion dollars worldwide in under two weeks, Warner Brothers is racing to set up more hard-R origins for Batman villains, hoping to replicate the runaway success of this comedy veteran’s imitation of a respected auteur as filtered through a vague patina of social relevance.
And thanks to our trusted insider sources, Robot Butt is pleased to present this exclusive look at WB’s planned slate of future festival darlings and awards contenders:
RIDDLER (July 2020): Drawing inspiration from the austere dread of Stanley Kubrick, Paul Feig will follow his upcoming romcom Last Christmas by pondering the damage wrought by predatory lobbyists as a struggling crossword puzzle designer’s alienation from society culminates in his burning of a tobacco executive’s mansion. The script is said to close with a haunting sequence that sees Gotham PD solving a crime-scene crossword puzzle made of bones and teeth in which every clue is answered with “systemic inequality.”
FREEZE (December 2020): Set to be modeled on the hallucinatory horrors of David Cronenberg, Judd Apatow’s incisive Brexit commentary will concern a struggling Gotham freezer repairman whose alienation from society leaves him no choice but to dismember and freeze the bodies of several visiting UK dignitaries. Rumor has it Daniel Day-Lewis has been lured out of retirement to apprentice with the world’s top freezer technicians as he prepares for another unforgettable immersive performance.
PENGUIN (May 2021): In this twisted riff on Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Greg Mottola will take on the fraught legacy of the War on Terror as a struggling janitor at the Gotham aquarium becomes alienated from society, leading him into a web of obsession, violence, and the lingering questions surrounding CIA complicity in war crimes, all of which will culminate in an electrifying climax said to focus on shoving Colin Powell into a sea lion tank.
CATWOMAN (October 2021): (Note: our sources do indicate this project will likely be revamped as Catman during development in hopes of appealing to the most devoted fans of Todd Phillips’ opus.) This Sirkian melodrama will see Mike Judge ruminate on climate change through the story of a struggling Gotham pet groomer who grows so alienated from society that she (or probably he) becomes convinced that she (or almost definitely he) has no choice but to fumigate the packed main hall at the Republican National Convention while wearing a cat costume from Spirit Halloween with the word “Capitalism” spray-painted on the stomach.
CALENDAR MAN (November 2021): Planned as a thrilling pastiche of Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather trilogy, Tom Shadyac will consider the troubling rise of automation and the accompanying existential threat to the American workforce as a struggling calendar salesman’s alienation from society pushes him into a downward spiral, leading inexorably to the brutal murder of one of those supermarket security robots that rolls around getting in your way when you’re just trying to get a can of black beans. Early reports suggest Dustin Hoffman is in talks for a career-revitalizing turn as the supermarket robot.
CLAYFACE (December 2021): In a tribute to Terrence Malick’s recent modern-day meditations, David Dobkin will take a thought-provoking look at the New England Patriots’ Deflategate controversy with this transcendental tone poem in which a struggling potter becomes alienated from society, his fall from grace playing out in long, woozy wanderings through dusky Gotham streets as the newly-minted villain offers awestruck voiceover contemplations on the eternal duality of clay and flame. Sources indicate that while this story will most likely end in bloodshed, in the spirit of recent Malick works, Dobkin plans to ensure the film bores viewers to sleep by the halfway mark, at which point they will promise to finish it tomorrow even as they know they’re lying to themselves.
JOKER 2 (December 2021): This time Joker gets laid. Savvy audiences will understand this to represent the recent college admissions scandal. From Kevin Smith (in the style of Pier Paolo Pasolini).