DEN OF GEEK has a new feature article on THE BATMAN and here are a few excerpts…
Matt Reeves on why he didn’t do (another) origin story and set THE BATMAN in year two of Batman’s career…
I didn’t want the arc to be ‘he becomes Batman and faces off with this particular rogues gallery character. I wanted you to see an imperfect Batman who would be driven to do what he’s doing in a way that was almost like a drug. He’s addicted to being Batman because it’s really an attempt to cope with those things in the past that we don’t see. I thought that was really fun to see a version of him that definitely hadn’t mastered himself, that was definitely in the process of becoming.
The article says Reeves read a tremendous amount of Batman comic books from different eras for months prepping to write the script…
I looked at the Bob Kane/Bill Finger comics because I really wanted the movie to be very noir. I looked at the [Denny O’Neil]/Neal Adams stuff and then I read a ton of the Scott Snyder run.
Reeves says that he always planned for THE BATMAN to be PG-13 and an R-rated “Director’s Cut” does not exist…
In my mind, the movie was always going to be a gritty, edgy, noir, thrilling spectacle that was PG-13. That was always what it was, but I always knew that we’d be pushing the limits of what that could be, and so we didn’t really have to cut anything. The promotional materials that you’re seeing, they’re fully reflective of the tone of the movie. There isn’t some special cut of this movie where it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, here’s the R rating that you’ve been desperately wanting.’ I didn’t have to suddenly start drastically cutting the movie or anything like that.
Pattinson on how he helped tweak the “I’m vengeance!” scene…
How it was initially staged was the guy says, ‘Who are you?’ And Batman says, ‘I’m vengeance,’ and then beats everybody up. I said to Rob [Alonzo, second unit director and supervising stunt coordinator], ‘I really want to say it into the guy’s face when he’s basically dead!’It’s not theatrical. You just want someone to be terrified after it.
Pattinson on his version of Bruce Wayne and why he chose to become Batman and how it’s different than previous cinematic incarnations…
In the movies, Batman’s always been portrayed as quite practical, matter-of-fact, in the reasons why he becomes Batman, but in the comics, a lot of them are about quite esoteric subjects. A lot of them he’s hallucinating and completely dissociating. That has not really been done so much in the movies.
More of Pattinson on Bruce Wayne, who is played in the film as a cold, slightly unkempt, recluse…
The Bruce part of it in this movie is probably the most different because he’s a weirdo as Bruce and as Batman. He’s fully committed to being Batman and he’s just not seen by the city at all… He has no desire to be Bruce in this and he wants to just throw it away. He thinks this is the way he can save himself, by living in this kind of Zen state as Batman, where it’s just pure instinct and no emotional baggage.
Every single person he is fighting is the person who killed his parents. But there’s a part of Bruce that just enjoys the violence. You’re going out every night fighting. You have to like it to some degree.
For the full article — I highly recommend you give it a read — CLICK HERE or any of the links provided. – Bill “Jett” Ramey
THE BATMAN hits theaters on March 4, 2022. Follow BOF’s Everything About THE BATMAN Page. Make plans to attend BOF’s THE BATMAN Watch Party.
