That's a whole lot of Batman that wound up on the cutting room floor. Recently, it was reported that The Batman would be far from a short film with a runtime lasting nearly three full hours. This makes the film one of the longest superhero tentpoles ever released and the longest Batman movie. As it turns out, an earlier cut of the film had an entire extra hour. Per The Hollywood Reporter, some test screenings of The Batman screened by Warner Bros. featured a four-hour cut of the film.

It's certainly not uncommon these days to see superhero movies run so long. Fans can't seem to get enough content by the time the films are over, especially with the crossover films that keep putting more and more superheroes into one movie. That's not the case with The Batman, which will be launching its own franchise unconnected to the DCEU, but it still seems director Matt Reeves wanted to show as much as he could of Bruce Wayne's life as a rookie crime-fighter facing the deadly serial killer known as the Riddler.

Many fans had also expected for The Batman to be R-rated, based on how dark, violent, and gritty the trailers and sneak peeks had been. It has since been revealed that the movie will be PG-13, but it does seem that it will be pushing that rating to the limit. The first trailer still made it clear that Robert Pattinson's Batman if looking to bring the pain based on that one memorable moment where he introduces himself as "vengeance" after pummeling a poor henchman into a pulp.

Related: The Batman's Colin Farrell Spent Four Hours in the Makeup Chair for Penguin Transformation

The Batman Will Likely Spawn a New Movie Series

The Batman 2022
Warner Bros. Pictures

Michael Keaton will be doing plenty in the DCEU with his Batman coming back in The Flash before another appearance in Batgirl. This does not mean there won't be continuous movies made in the unconnected world of The Batman. As producer Dylan Clark previously told Empire, “As the first standalone Batman in ten years, the hope is we can lay a foundation that you can build stories upon."

“I’ve made a kind of map for where Bruce’s psychology would grow over two more movies. I would love to do it," Pattinson also teased of the possibility of doing more movies.

The idea is to make The Batman 2 and perhaps even more movies if this first film is a hit. There are already plans in motion for multiple spinoff shows to stream separately on HBO Max. One program will follows the officers of the Gotham City Police Department, though it's unclear if Jeffrey Wright's James Gordon will be involved. Another spinoff while closely follow Colin Farrell as Oswald Cobblepot, aka Penguin, after the supervillain first makes his debut in The Batman.

The Batman is set to hit theaters on March 4, 2022. The film is directed by Matt Reeves and stars Robert Pattinson, Paul Dano, Zoe Kravitz, Jeffrey Wright, Andy Serkis, John Turturro, Peter Sarsgaard, Jayme Lawson, and Colin Farrell.