This seems to be a trend when it comes to certain movies as despite the fact that Robert Pattinson will be making an impressive $5 million for his role as Batman, Jonah Hill seems to want $10 million to star in the same movie. The argument that Neeraj Chand from MovieWeb seems to be bringing forth is that Hill is a much bigger name in show business than Pattinson is at the moment, and that’s kind of hard to argue. But an opinionated argument, not based on the box office numbers mind you, is that Hill is being kind of ridiculous for holding out for that much money. Honestly, Hill might be a little more known, but at the same time he’s more of an acquired taste as a lot of people still enjoy the idea of Pattinson being in anything, as Hill tends to be a hot and cold kind of actor being that he’s had great movies and lousy movies just like anyone. With that in mind it’s fair to say that Hill might also be more expendable than some might think since quite honestly it’s hard to see him as a Batman villain, especially the Riddler as some to think that he might be in line for.
The other character he might play, according to Ian Cardona of CBR, is the Penguin, and that’s a little more believable whether he’s thin or has a bit of extra weight on him. For some reason Hill just strikes some people as the most annoying character in the room since that ‘natural swagger’ that seems to come to him when he enters a set has the kind of energy that can attract some people and turn other people off. This is a personal opinion since honestly he is a good actor, but he’s also a rather annoying character much of the time since his characters tend to have a very exaggerated sense of self-worth at times. So maybe playing the Riddler or the Penguin would be perfect, but not for the kind of money he’s demanding since quite honestly people are looking forward to Pattinson more than Hill for this movie. It would have to take someone bigger than both men to really pull the attention away from Pattinson altogether.
Pulling down this much money for one movie isn’t exactly record-breaking since if you’ll remember some stars such as Jim Carrey have made $20 million on a single picture, even though those movies didn’t perform nearly as well as they were expected (cough cough, Cable Guy, cough cough). Richard Natale of the Los Angeles Times has mentioned this and a bit more when it comes to what else Carrey got to sweeten that deal, so the $5 million that Pattinson is getting is kind of easy to think about since back in 1988 when Bruce Willis, then an unproven action star, was given that amount for a charming Christmas thriller titled Die Hard, it was a huge risk. These days it almost seems standard with movies like The Batman that seems as though it’s going to be hyped to such a degree that even thinking you won’t like it might seem like blasphemy to some.
The reason it’s easy to counter this however is the fact that Batman has a serious amount of stigma that even Christopher Nolan’s trilogy can’t entirely erase. In fact his trilogy even added a little more fuel to the fire despite the success of The Dark Knight and even the success of the first and third movies. Ever since the Val Kilmer movie however things have been on a downhill slide that was arrested and reversed into an upswing by Nolan, only to be presented with the avalanche of woe that was Bat-Fleck. So far, people are still willing to believe that The Batman could possibly be a saving grace for a hero that’s been good, even great, but has also been portrayed horribly in some cases, but that faith has waned with a lot of folks that are ready to see something new, something enticing, and something more along the lines of the comics, which DC might never do since, much like Marvel, they don’t want to go too dark and alienate a big part of their fan base. It might be time to say to hell with it though and go all out to try and bring the viewership up again in an attempt to get people interested. Those that were alive when Kilmer, Clooney, and then Affleck came around are getting old enough at this point, well some of them are, that they can take the shock of seeing Batman get truly aggressive with the bad guys and deal with the very adult themes that even the comics have gone through, so maybe it’s time to really dig in and do something that people will be shocked by initially but will come to fully enjoy. Then Pattinson would be worth that money, but Hill might still need to think about taking a lesser amount.
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