THE BATMAN Casts Paul Dano as The Riddler

Riddle me this, riddle me that -- Who's the new Riddler to face the big, black bat?

The Hollywood Reporter has word that Paul Dano has been cast as DC Comics supervillain The Riddler in Matt Reeves' upcoming Warner Bros. film The Batman, starring Robert Pattinson as Batman/Bruce Wayne, Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman, and Jeffrey Wright as Commissioner Gordon.

According to the article, Dano's version of the character will be named Edward Nashton, the name some Batman comic book writers stated is the Riddler's true name before adopting the identity of Edward Nygma.

The Batman is said to be a noir-driven Batman movie, rumored to be based on the popular 13-issue limited series Batman: The Long Halloween, written by Jeph Loeb and drawn by Tim Sale.

Dano, 35, is probably best known as David Sweat in the Showtime limited series Escape at Dannemora and as Paul Sunday/Eli Sunday in the 2007 film There Will Be Blood.  His other films include Wildlife, Okja, 12 Years a Slave, Looper, Cowboys & Aliens, Knight and Day, Where the Wild Things Are, Little Miss Sunshine, The Ballad of Jack and Rose, and The Girl Next Door.  His other television appearances include episodes of The Sopranos and Smart Guy.

Created by Bill Finger and Dick Sprang in 1948's Detective Comics (vol.1) #140, the Riddler first appeared as Edward Nigma (later Nygma), who became fascinated with puzzles at a young age.  After a teacher announced that a contest would be held for who could solve a puzzle the fastest, Nigma set on winning the contest, craving the glory and satisfaction that would come with the victory.  He broke into the school at night to practice the puzzle until he was able to solve it in under a minute.  As a result, he won the contest and was given a book of riddles as a prize.  Nigma embraced the mastery of puzzles of all kinds, eventually becoming a carnival employee who excelled at cheating his customers out of their money with his bizarre puzzles and mind games.

Nigma soon found himself longing for greater challenges and donned the disguise of "The Riddler" to challenge Batman, believing him to be a worthy adversary.  In his first encounter, the Riddler first tried to confound Batman and Robin with his infamous double-entry Riddle Clues and then tried to kill them both in a booby-trapped glass maze on a pier, sealing the door so they couldn't leave the structure before it exploded.  Batman and Robin escaped, however, and the Riddler vanished after getting knocked into the sea by the explosion, leaving only his trademark "?" floating in the water.

In the current DC Comics continuity known as The New 52, a revamped version of the Riddler appeared in the "Zero Year" storyline by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, where his surname was changed from Edward Nigma (or Nashton) to Nygma.  The Riddler became Batman's first masked supervillain and not only bested Batman twice, but also took control of Gotham, causing it to become a flooded wasteland where only the intelligent were meant to survive.  He was eventually defeated by the combined efforts of Batman, Commissioner James Gordon and Wayne Enterprises CEO Lucius Fox, and moved to Arkham Asylum.

Dano will be the fifth actor to portray the Riddler in live action, after Frank Gorshin and John Astin in the 1960s Batman television series, Jim Carrey in the 1995 film Batman Forever, and Cory Michael Smith in the Fox TV series Gotham.

The Batman is currently scheduled to arrive in theaters on June 25, 2021.