Russell Brand as BATMAN, Luis Guzman as ROBIN?

Very, very smart idea from Warner Bros. to invite paparazzi snappers to basically help themselves during filming of the opening scene of next year’s Arthur remake in New York over the weekend.

The reason – Russell Brand as a Michael Keaton-esque Batman, and Luis Guzman in a Burt Ward Robin costume. Not… one… individual…. tabloid… press… outlet…. could… help… themselves.

What a superb publicity stunt.

The timing couldn’t be better and clearly WB planned for this. It is of course the weekend of Inception’s release and the eve of San Diego Comic Con, a time when they figured a large legion of geeks/fanboys/internet nerds would be fired up about the infinite possibilities of Chris Nolan’s next Batman movie. I would expect the interest in Arthur has probably gone up at least 15 notches today.

Smart, smart move.

I just messaged OWF’s Simon Gallagher who has read Peter Baynham’s Arthur script to see how these sequence play out in the film, and he responded;

Arthurs just driving the batmobile right at the start. Showing off.

Brand’s Arthur (who remember is insanely wealthy, in a Bruce Wayne kind of way) has bought a batmobile from eBay, presumably?

So I google some more, and I find this story from Cinematical – where the Batmobile from Batman Forever was spotted parked up in New York earlier this month…

More pics of Brand/Guzman (check out that utility belt) below…

Cool. Being a massive Bat-fan, I dig this. Though isn’t it odd to see a 1960′s Robin, alongside a replica Bat-costume from 1995 (although with the yellow logo) and then the Batmobile from the same movie?

And I wonder if this opening sequence of the film will beat the best Batman parody ever?

Brand plays the wealthy and merry playboy who will inherit a fortune if he marries an heiress (Jennifer Garner, amazingly) his family is keen to see him tie the not with, but he actually falls for a blue-collar thief (Greta Gerwig).

Oscar winner Helen Mirren (who with this and her automatic gun wielding assassin in Red – has ditched stuffy drama’s to let her hair down and just have a good time on screen) will play a veteran nanny, replacing John Gielgud’s valet from the original. Gielgud won an Oscar for Best Supporting role in the Moore original, so maybe there is something for Mirren to work with here.

Nick Nolte is also on board (as Gerwig’s father), as is Luis Guzman.

Jason Winer, a regular director on the show Modern Family helms from a Peter Baynham (Borat, Bruno) script, that we reviewed back in February.

Arthur opens sometime next year.