We are getting close to the release of Matt Reeves The Batman and over the last couple
of weeks, the marketing has significantly stepped
up, giving us a plethora of TV spots, articles
and photos surrounding the new film.
But one article
came out a couple of days ago featuring the director giving us some very intriguing details
towards how he got the film made from the beginning.
This involves him discussing the
departure of Ben Affleck and his previously announced film and how that led us to today,
with the filmmaker set to launch a brand new trilogy
and universe that stands on its own away from the DCEU.
In this video, I'm going to
be discussing his comments and what it could mean for his vision come the release of The
Batman on March the 4th.
But before I get into the Reeves
interview, if you want to see much more videos on The Batman leading up to its release date,
including the continuation of my road to The Batman series, then don't forget to support
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which is all linked in the description below.
But without further ado, let's discuss how
Matt Reeves got The Batman made.
So while Matt Reeves was working on the post production for War of the Planet of the Apes,
he couldn't find the time to answer the calls from Warner Bros.
This gives you a sense of
his ambition with every project, thinking about
one at a time and putting his all into that to make it the best film possible.
The new
article over at Esquire magazine gives a full explanation
from the director on the process of getting his Batman movie made and a lot of the early
details behind the transition period at Warner Bros with this film.
It's intriguing and stuff
that just outlines the ambition of this filmmaker,
telling us that he would only make this if it was 100% his vision and of course, him
being able to do it right.
To begin, it describes how
Reeves was tirelessly working with animators over at Weta Digital on the nuance that he
could show in some of the visual effects for his final apes' movie, and with Warner Bros
still continuously trying to get a hold of him,
he finally took the call from his agent after hesitating for a while.
His agent told him
that a meeting which WB wanted to have with him is not a
traditional one, and that actually, it's about the character of Batman.
It describes here
and goes over some of the things we learnt previously from Empire magazine a few weeks
back, that the director was a huge fan of the character
growing up.
He rewatched Batman Returns over and over, was a fan of the 66 tv show and
was invested in all of the other adaptations.
But when he was reading comic books in his teens, he began to see the caped crusader
more as a character with deeper complexity.
He said, “I’ve always felt that the Batman
story was a very special one.
He’s not really a superhero.
He’s someone who’s driven by the pain of his past and he’s trying to find some
way to make sense of his life.
It’s a very psychological story.
This is the character I relate to the most".
Deep within, there was essentially a take
on this story that Reeves had dreamed of telling.
One that was different from the others and
deeply personal.
It turns out that this wasn't the
one that Warner Bros had originally contacted him about making, with that one being the
Ben Affleck script in the DCEU, that the actor had
written for himself to star in.
Reeves recalls by saying, “I read a script that they had
that was a totally valid take on the movie.
It was very action-driven.
It was very deeply
connected to the DCEU, with other major characters from other movies and other comics popping
up.
I just knew that when I read it this particular script was not the way I’d want to do
it".
So while he says that Affleck's script was something that seems pretty interesting,
the universe connected approach that he was going for wasn't what Reeves wanted for his
version of the character and to be honest I completely
understand this.
When you have a vision for a character you've loved all your life you
don't want to commit to something that for one, you
don't have the upmost passion for and two, something which isn't what you envisioned.
And resultingly, the filmmaker decided to go to Warner Bros in-person to respectfully
tell them no.
Reeves says...
“I said look, I think maybe
I’m not the person for this.
And I explained to them why I love this character.
I told
them that there have been so many great movies, but if I
were to do this, I’d have to make it personal, so that I understood what I was going to do
with it, so that I know where to put the camera, so that I know what to tell the actors, so
that I know what the story should be.
This take,
I told them, pointing at the script, is a totally valid and exciting take.
It is almost
James Bond-ian, but it wasn’t something that I quite
related to.
So again, Reeves liked Affleck's script, it just wasn't what he personally
wanted to commit to or bring to the screen himself.
Reeves told Warner Bros, "so what I’d love to do if you’re interested is I’d like
to get involved and find a way to take the story and make it very, very personal and
get to the place I want him to be, to make it a Batman story
and give him the arc, and have the story rock him to his core.
It wasn’t going to be another
origin story, not with Ben already in the character.
But that’s what I would do”.
He didn't even tell them the story he envisioned, but
to his utter shock, Warner Bros came back and they said, we will wait, because we like
this vision.
And by the beginning of 2017, as he finalising
War For The Planet Of The Apes, a transition had begun.
Ben Affleck started reevaluating
what he wanted to do and was fighting throughout perhaps the hardest year of his personal life,
pushing Batman to the sidelines.
This comes from the mouth of multiple people including
Affleck himself and it was unfortunate.
And if you
know me, I wanted to see what Affleck had in mind for his Batman film and I was extremely
excited for it.
But of course, personal issues come before acting and with Ben dealing with
these, it was the right decision to make for himself.
Matt Reeves producer, Dylan Clark says, “we had no idea what was going on.
Ben is a friend
of mine, and I love Ben, but I didn’t know exactly
about those things in his personal life.
We didn’t find out until much later.”
So
after we found out that Affleck stepped away from the role entirely, it also left Reeves
and Clark with a blank slate and now their version of The Batman
could be anything they wanted.
And with Warner Bros coming back to the director to understand
his vision, it was time for him to reveal what
he was holding on to for so long.
Reeves said, “I hadn’t worked out the story, I had
this north star of a guiding principle.
Then the fact that there was this moment of transition,
out of that came an opportunity to say, ok, what
if we didn’t do another origin tale?
What if, instead, we went to the imperfect Batman
of his early days?”
So ultimately, there was the idea of a
Batman: Year Two story.
Reeves said, “A lot of the Batman stories we’ve seen on film, you see an origin tale.
You see his parents killed, and then you see him perfecting himself into becoming Batman.
A lot of times you see stories where he’s already
become Batman, then the Rogues’ Gallery villain comes in, and it’s then their story,
and you watch him go toe-to-toe with them.
I wanted the
main character in the story to be a Batman who was a year in and still trying to figure
out how to do this, how to be effective, and he’s not necessarily succeeding.
He’s
broken and driven.
He’d like to think that he is doing
the right thing, that there’s another part of him, that’s struggling right up against
the limits.
I think his biggest weakness is not realizing
the extent to which the person that he’s fighting is himself".
So he clearly understands
the character of Bruce Wayne and while in the past he's talked about how great the other
adaptations are, he wants to do something truly different,
but one that quintessentially feels like Batman.
He may think he's Batman but he's not quite
there yet.
And there are still truths and secrets he must uncover before he becomes
that dark knight.
And with this came the very crucial question.
Who should be the next Batman?
While figuring out who would play his damaged take
on the character, he brought up suggestions with Dylan Clark after writing the movie and
the director had thought back to one of the best movies performances he's seen in the
last 10 years.
And that was after seeing Robert Pattinson
in 2017's Good Time.
Clark said, “Rob had just been doing these amazing parts with these
incredible directors, and showcasing all of these skills.
Good Time was a movie we just marvel at.
He’s so real, he’s so intense.
There was an emotional
arc, a trajectory that really resonated with us".
They essentially wanted a Batman with
layers, describing the role as one that includes a man of vengeance and of hope, an obsessive,
near-delirious man who remains clear-eyed, who can still represent justice in an unjust
world.
Robert Pattinson stated, “I just knew there
was something radically different from anything we’d seen in Batman movies before.
Right
from the beginning, there’s a desperation to him.
He’s
really working out this rage.
All the fights seem very personal.
He wants to inflict his
kind of justice.
He’s just compelled to do it.
There is no other option".
And this all comes through the approach and kind of story Reeves wanted to tell.
A detective
noir, 70s inspired cinema, with a city being exploited and broken down from the inside
all while its main character and supporting players
are being broken down or shaken to their cores.
Whether it's a Kurt Cobain Bruce Wayne, a
zodiac riddler or a godfather inspired penguin.
In the article, Peter Sarsgaard, who plays
District Attorney Gil Colson in the film, said, “he was talking about a lot of films
that I really respected like Taxi Driver that were really
character-driven.
With a lot of those references, I thought, ‘oh, you’re going to be interested
in people?
And what makes people do things?’
And, yeah, that’s what Film Noir is.
It’s
not just an aesthetic, it’s really an investigation
of the dark side of ourselves".
So The Batman has this opportunity to be its own thing,
apart of a newly connected trilogy of unique approaches, one that like say Nolan's trilogy
can have films that excel in their own brilliance.
This first film is a character-driven psychological
noir and it leaves plenty of space to do more unique tales in the future, ones that
aren't connected to other properties in the larger DC expanded universe.
Yet ones that
bring about the other two films in the trilogy and HBO Max
shows that all build on a singular Gotham take.
Reeves ends this whole interview by
stating, “there’s no question it’s going to continue on long after this.
It’s great,
because it’s a great myth.
It allows itself to almost endless
reinterpretation.
There’s been so many iterations, and what was important for me, critical for
me was, I could not go into doing this one without feeling like we would have something
definitive to say about this myth.
I think that a lot of these great myths have that
power, which is that if they truly resonate, they allow
you to find a way to take the aspects of it that people love, and then do something new
with it.
And then people connect to it all over again.
And I hope that’s what we’ve
done".
And in my opinion, the filmmaker is totally accurate
about this.
The fact that over the last 50 years we've got numerous individual takes
on Batman and the last trilogy made nearly 3 billion dollars
at the box office, just shows this long term sustainability that Batman has had on film.
Every filmmaker has come with a different vision whether it be Burton, Nolan, Snyder
or others, and they have all brought a different take
and put their filmmaking stamp on it.
Now it's Matt Reeves turn to keep this iconic
character alive and fresher than ever, and hopefully as many
of us continue to build our anticipation for the film, it will deliver as being yet another
great Batman entry.
It sure does look like that from everything we've seen, but we will
soon find out whether Reeves take is as unique
as it sounds and primarily if it brings a great new take on the caped crusader.
But that was my breakdown of Matt Reeves recent comments surrounding how he made The Batman.
We are getting closer to March and soon we will be able to see what this all means for
the film and whether it being a standalone endeavour
will impact the kind of iteration we get.
I think that it's a good thing that this film
is separated and this is something that Christopher Nolan's trilogy benefited from as unique genre
of films because we were able to focus on them individually and all the great filmmaking
on show without it dragging the weight of many films
at the same time.
Hopefully, we'll be able to see that within the context of this film
being a neo-noir detective piece and it's just great to hear Reeves outline that this
was his vision from the outset.
Of course, it's also tragic
that we'll never get to see Ben Affleck's vision too but like Reeves and the actor have
both clarified, he stepped away because of personal
issues and didn't have the passion to continue playing the role while all of this was going
on.
Matt Reeves is trying to turn a new page and put his stamp on the character in a separated
way and this gives him the advantage to create something special that we haven't seen before.
After all, Batman is a character that benefits from new takes and that's why he's lasted
for so long on the big screen and we have seen
new styles and approaches with all the films every time.
Still, this doesn't mean the new
film will be any good, but everything we've heard and
seen so far seems promising leading into March.
I'm personally very excited and I'm looking
forward to seeing the director's filmmaking on display too.
But I'm interested to hear
what you guys think towards the early process of getting
The Batman made, and overall, are you excited for Matt Reeves style of filmmaking in this
new iteration.
Let me know down below in the comments section.
For more videos surrounding The Batman leading up to its release, including the continuation
of my Road to The Batman series, then subscribe to the channel and turn on your notifications.
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But anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed it, I've been
Cortex and as always make some noise.