Though the possibility of Jonah Hill as either The Riddler or Penguin faded when he was unable to reach an agreement for the project, another actor has stepped in to fill one of the villain roles in The Batman.

New reports say Paul Dano (There Will Be Blood, Little Miss Sunshine) will now play The Riddler. More on the report below.

The Hollywood Reporter says Dano will play a character to be named Edward Nashton aka The Riddler. In the comics, previous films, and various other animated TV shows and video games, the character was actually Edward Nygma. Though the name has been changed, we can presume that the character will cause Batman some major trouble as he spreads chaos through Gotham City using a series of perplexing riddles.

Dano is well-known for his roles in smaller and more indie films like Little Miss Sunshine, There Will Be Blood, and Swiss Army Man. But he has appeared in some slighter bigger films like Looper. However, The Batman will be the biggest title on his filmography. He was recently nominated for an Emmy for his role in Escape at Dannemora.

Again, we don’t know much about the film aside from the fact that director Matt Reeves wants to have a detective-noir driven story. So it makes sense that The Riddler be the villain considering how much detective skills Batman will need to have in order to solve all those riddles.

Though the loss of Hill is somewhat disappointing, the rest of the cast is great. We know that Robert Pattinson will play Bruce Wayne aka Batman, while Zoe Kravitz recently joined the cast as Selina Kyle aka Catwoman. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Wright is in talks to play Commissioner Gordon.

It will be very interesting to see what Reeves’ approach will be to the upcoming film. Based on what we’ve heard it sounds like the film will be grounded, so don’t expect anything too campy like the Riddler from the ’60s or something truly insane and wacky like Jim Carrey’s take on the character from Batman Forever. However, Reeves has said that he wanted to utilize much of Batman’s Rogues Gallery, so we can probably expect to hear more in terms of casting as the film heads into production soon. Which of those villains we will see remains unknown. All we can do is speculate.

The Batman opens in theaters on June 25, 2021.

[Source: THR]