'The Batman' stars 'scared and very excited' to see audience response

LOS ANGELES: Robert Pattinson and Zoe Kravitz team up as Batman and Catwoman in the latest cinematic outing of the famed DC Comics figures for "The Batman".

The nearly three-hour movie is very much a film noir, with the two characters playing detective to find a missing girl and locate The Riddler, who is murdering high-profile figures in Gotham City.

The new direction has Pattinson and Kravitz a little worried about how audiences will respond.

"I feel scared and very excited at the same time but definitely intimidated," Kravitz told Reuters in an interview.

"Hopefully it will go down well. I wish we did press after the movie came out. It would be so much easier," Pattinson added.

Pattinson's Batman has a different silhouette from previous incantations. In this film, directed by Matt Reeves, he has a much slimmer pointy-eared mask.

"I couldn't hear anything. I also had an earpiece in which I was having direction through... occasionally they'd leave on every single person's walkie-talkie on the entire set and I couldn't get it out myself so I'd be literally listening to every single thing that's happening," Pattinson said.

"Sometimes (Reeves would) leave the mic on and you could hear, if it was a tense scene, his breathing would accelerate."

Set in fictional Gotham City, the film addresses politics, corruption, poverty and crime.

"The ways in which Matt has co-opted this genre and the Batman series to make it a film about Batman, yes, but also about the world in which we live, I think was just really brilliant," said Jeffrey Wright, who plays Batman's police ally, Lieutenant James Gordon.

Colin Farrell looks unrecognizable as The Penguin, spending up to four hours a day in make-up.

As well as rumours of a sequel, Warner Bros have announced a spin-off television show featuring The Penguin.

"To have six to eight hours or whatever, it would be just a joy to explore this character because it didn't feel like a one-trick pony," Farrell said.

"The Batman" begins its global cinema roll-out from Tuesday.