Batman filming halted after Robert Pattinson gets Covid-19

LOS ANGELES • Filming in Britain for the latest Batman movie has been halted after its star, Robert Pattinson, reportedly tested positive for the coronavirus, just days after shooting had resumed.

"A member of The Batman production has tested positive for Covid-19 and is isolating in accordance with established protocols," Warner Bros said in a statement. "Filming is temporarily paused."

The studio did not name the person infected or indicate when filming would resume.

However, a number of Hollywood trade publications - including Variety and The Hollywood Reporter - said they had confirmed that Pattinson, 34, was the sick cast member.

Production for the new film - a dark, detective-style mystery take on the "Caped Crusader" - also had to shut down midway through production in March due to the pandemic.

Director Matt Reeves has said his version - due out next June - is inspired by classic film noir such as Chinatown (1974) and Taxi Driver (1976) and will meet a "very human and very flawed" Bruce Wayne in his second year as Batman, trying to solve a series of crimes.

The hotly anticipated movie's first footage, released at the DC FanDome event last month, left fans drooling, with a mysterious villain leaving notes for Batman at crime scenes across Gotham - and the film's hero pummelling a street thug before growling: "I'm vengeance."

The stop in production comes as Hollywood scrambles to get back to work after the pandemic brought a halt to film and television shoots in March.

Several major Hollywood blockbusters resumed filming in the last two months, a number of them in Britain, which loosened coronavirus travel rules to allow cast and crew to fly in for work.

Among the high-profile films that have received the green light to resume production are Jurassic World: Dominion, starring Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, and Mission: Impossible 7, starring Tom Cruise.

Movie productions in Los Angeles have only recently resumed, with studios imposing strict safety rules on actors and crew members.

Pattinson, who rose to fame in the romance-fantasy Twilight films (2008 to 2012), is the latest high-profile actor to have contracted the virus.

On Wednesday, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson revealed that his entire family had tested positive for the coronavirus, but had all recovered fully.

Other Hollywood celebrities who have contracted the coronavirus include actor Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson, former Bond girl Olga Kurylenko and British actor Idris Elba.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE