Hollywood spent the week wringing its hands over the same problem: every bankable movie star is pushing 65.
Per our source, the incoming owners of Warner Bros. think they already have the answer.
“Dune and Pattinson are gonna surprise a lot of people,” the source tells us. “WB/Paramount fully aware he’s the next Tom Cruise.”
This is the same source behind our exclusive that David Ellison is going all in on Batman, with Matt Reeves and Robert Pattinson.
And the checkbook matches the talk, and the Ellisons have the wallet to match.
Reeves and Pattinson “are being offered whatever they want to continue the Batman franchise,” per the source.
The Sixtysomething Problem
The timing here is everything.
In Thursday’s What I’m Hearing newsletter at Puck, Matthew Belloni ran down the fall slate under a section literally titled “Sixtysomething.”
Warner Bros. has Tom Cruise, 64, fronting Digger at a budget the studio admits is $130 million, and Belloni notes it’s really more.
Brad Pitt, 62, is being asked to carry two movies. Sandra Bullock, 62, and Nicole Kidman, 59, topline Practical Magic 2. Ben Stiller, 60, has the next Focker movie.
And on the Avengers: Doomsday poster, the biggest face belongs to 61-year-old Robert Downey Jr.
Belloni’s read on why: “Real movie stars are such an endangered species these days” that studios keep going back to the ones audiences grew up with, because nobody has built a new one.
Except, per our source, the people buying Warner Bros. think one already built himself.
The One Actor In Both Columns
Here is what makes Pattinson the answer and not just a name.
Belloni’s own list of this year’s youth-driven hits includes The Odyssey. Pattinson is in The Odyssey.
He is the one actor standing in both columns: the Gen Z hit and the tentpole future.
Run his next 18 months.
He plays Antinous in The Odyssey, now the highest-grossing IMAX release in history and sitting at the top of the Best Picture boards.
Next month brings Primetime, the A24 drama pundits have flagged as a Best Actor vehicle since it was announced.
December brings Dune: Part Three, where our source has already called Pattinson a strong early Oscar favorite.
And February 2028 brings The Batman Part II, shooting now, with early internal reaction our source calls “off the roof.” The Glasgow night shoots have already produced the kind of footage that travels, with set video of the GCPD opening fire on the Batmobile racking up millions of views off one fan’s phone.
Pattinson is 40. Everyone on Belloni’s list is at least 19 years older.
The People Who Produced The Real One
The comparison means more coming from this regime than from anyone else in town.
David Ellison built Skydance on Tom Cruise. Top Gun: Maverick. Every Mission: Impossible since Ghost Protocol.
Fifteen years of producing the actual Tom Cruise.
So when this regime looks at an actor and calls him the next one, that is not a fan making a comparison. That is the operation that financed the original identifying the successor.
There’s even a symmetry to it: Warner Bros. currently has the 64-year-old Cruise on its slate, while the incoming owner locks up the 40-year-old it believes comes next.
Photo Credit: Photo Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Dune Is The Launchpad
“Dune and Pattinson are gonna surprise a lot of people.”
The commercial half of that is already on the board. IMAX 70mm and premium format tickets are selling at record pace, and AMC CEO Adam Aron apologized for a presale crash driven by traffic three times what the chain saw for Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
It opens directly against Avengers: Doomsday on December 18.
The awards half is the claim our source made this week: Pattinson as Scytale is the performance that finally puts this franchise on an acting ballot.
“Whatever They Want”
Then comes Gotham.
As laid out in our Batman exclusive, Ellison wants Reeves to finish a trilogy plus an Arkham Asylum series trilogy, with Pattinson and Reeves getting production deals that rival Marvel stars.
It also fits the bigger plan the theater chains just endorsed. As we reported, Cinemark switched gears and backed the $111 billion merger after getting what our insiders call “a glimpse into what the audience wants.”
A movie star audiences will pay to see sits at the center of exactly that kind of plan.
Contracts still have to be signed, and all of it waits on the merger, which remains frozen pending trial, with a verdict possibly not until June 2027, barring an earlier settlement.
But the intent could not be clearer. The town says there are no more movie stars.
The people buying Warner Bros. think they’re already in business with the next one.
And Pattinson isn’t the only name on the board: the same source says keep an eye on Gal Gadot and Wonder Woman 3.
Follow every update at our Dune: Part Three hub and in our Batman: Part II guide.
