WB Needs to Put 'The Batman' on HBO Max So We Can See Paul Dano's Riddler

Warner Bros. announced earlier this week that they would release all their movies in theaters and on HBO Max simultaneously in 2021. Not as a harbinger of the death of the theater business, but in response to a pandemic which we are still many months from overcoming. One upcoming film that will not get an HBO Max release is The Batman, which could become the next - and perhaps biggest ever - blockbuster.

This is no good. They had a two-minute teaser trailer ready to go for this movie back in August when it was set for a June 2021 release. It was then pushed to October 2021 and now March 2022. This thing looks good to go. It is dark(er) and gritty(er) than Christopher Nolan's dark and gritty Dark Knight trilogy. Let's go! Put this thing online already. Package it with a year of ESPN+ and some Mickey Mouse slippers. Whatever it takes!

I'm saying this because we need to see Paul Dano as The Riddler. The bar was set by Jim Carrey, in the most cartoonish, 90's Jim Carrey way possible. A performance so over the top comic book-ish that Tommy Lee Jones told Carrey, "I cannot sanction your buffoonery."

If what we're looking at is a bunch of dark catchphrases from Paul Dano, I am in. Dano absolutely owns playing dark, disturbed characters. There Will Be Blood, Prisoners, Love & Mercy. There is just something... creepy about Dano. He is absolutely underappreciated. He was great as David Sweat in Escape From Dannemora, which earned him an Emmy nomination.

Mostly, I just want to see the dark, gritty Riddler outfit. Is he going to be some kind of Matthew Lesko, shaken to his core by a Batman-caused recession? And how will Colin Farrell's The Penguin compare to Danny DeVito's? Are his bulked-up calves part of the role?

These are the things we cannot wait until the spring of 2022 to find out. So, come on, WB. Please. Put The Batman on HBO Max.

Oh, and put HBO Max on Roku. Otherwise I'm going to have to watch Paul Dano be awesome on a computer and that is just going to piss off Christopher Nolan. None of us want that smoke.