Via an interview with THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER (for his new Netflix series, TERMINATOR ZERO), THE BATMAN: PART II co-screenwriter Mattson Tomlin (who also is the author of the comic book BATMAN: THE IMPOSTER) talked about not getting a WGA credit for his work on THE BATMAN…
Yeah, I’ll be honest about it. It was a painful thing to have happen. I put a lot of time and a lot of heart in. I had a really, really great time working with Matt on that first movie. And when I got brought in, it was kind of said, ‘Look, we’re so late in this process that you’re probably not going to get credit.’ So nobody did anything to me. I wasn’t screwed over. We ended up doing so much, not just on the third act, but then heightening things in the mystery, and the first two acts — that then there was kind of a moment of, ‘Oh, wait, maybe there’s a chance [I’ll get credit].’ But that’s all that it was. And then my name got out there in public, which is always kind of a bad idea. So, then I’m associated with this thing.
So I found out the day that the Fandome trailer came out [in August 2020]. On the one hand, it was like, ‘Wow, there it is!’ And on the other hand, it’s like, ‘…and I don’t have anything to do with this anymore.’ And that was a little bit of a heartbreak, and there was a level of, dare I say, having to grow up and having to go, ‘You know what? They paid me. I’m a professional, so be a professional and try not to take that too hard.’
The day that the movie came out, [Matt Reeves] and I talked on the phone for an hour or two, and he was just talking about the process of making the movie, and I think just kind of processing the experience that he had had. And I had an impulse to go like, ‘OK, but are you going to ask me to do the sequel?’ And I didn’t go there. Instead, it became very clear to me, he just wants to talk about what he’s just been through. So just be a good dude, be a good friend, celebrate that he still treating me like it’s something that I was a part of, because I was. And so just enjoy that. And it was about six weeks later that he called me and said, ‘So, sequel time. You want to do this all the way this time?’
There was such a tremendous emotional catharsis for me, because Batman means a ton to me. And I think that when you’re a writer, a director, a creator, you’re trying to do things that matter to you, but also that matter to audiences. And all the scary thoughts came. The imposter syndrome came, and the thoughts of, ‘Oh, am I going to be the footnote in a Wikipedia article….’ All that dark, scary stuff happened. And it’s still there, by the way, but it was kind of this moment of, ‘OK — it’s not even a redemption arc. It’s more like, now I get to prove myself. Now I get the big boy job.’ And so, all of that is to say, I am I forever, forever in debt to Matt Reeves. He’s changed my life three times over now.
RELATED | Mattson Tomlin Talks THE BATMAN: PART II, Working with Matt Reeves
I remember Mattson being brought in to help write THE BATMAN and I was surprised that his name didn’t appear in the writing credits. But he did indeed help write THE BATMAN — and got paid for it, as he says — and he got “the big boy job” of co-writing THE BATMAN: PART II with Matt Reeves. So all’s well that ends well. – Bill “Jett” Ramey
(Thanks to BOF’s Ryan Lower for the heads up!)
