Like most major film productions, ‘The Batman’ has shut down. Director Matt Reeves, the cast, and crew are lying low in London, where 25% of the film had already been shot before the COVID-19 lockdowns. Reeves is using the time to review the footage, although he states that he has not yet begun editing. As he told Deadline:
“We’re not officially editing right now. We’ve actually shot a quarter of the movie and I have been pouring through dailies, looking at takes, and what’s to come.”
While he couldn’t get into details of the plot obviously, he did offer a vague tease as to the movie’s tone.
“[It’s] noir-driven, in which Batman is investigating a particular case that takes us out into the world of Gotham… It took me two years to work on that story, and it’s a very specific mystery noir that’s been really thought-out by me and my partners.”
Reeves has been open that this film takes place early in Batman’s crimefighting career, but this won’t be another origin story. (Relax, Martha Wayne’s pearls will live to see another day!) In fact, this won’t be just another Batman movie.
As Reeves told the New York Times:
“Of course these things have to be mined in a way that can make these companies money. You never know whether the people in charge of those I.P.s [intellectual properties] are going to be open to your vision. But if they weren’t, I wouldn’t have done ‘Batman’. I was like, look, there have been some great ‘Batman’ films and I don’t want to just make a “Batman” film. I want to do something that has some emotional stakes. My ambition is for it to be incredibly personal using the metaphors of that world. It feels like this really odd throwback to the movies I came up on from the ’70s, like ‘Klute’ or ‘Chinatown’. I’m not saying we’re achieving anything like that. Those are masterpieces. But that’s the ambition.”
This calls to mind the assertion that Todd Phillips’ ‘Joker’ would channel classics like ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘The King of Comedy’. And by most accounts, Phillips and star Joaquin Phoenix lived up to that.
If you are unfamiliar with Reeves’ inspirations, ‘Klute’ is a suspenseful 1971 noir directed by Alan J. Pakula, which won Jane Fonda an Academy Award for her role as a high-priced prostitute who helps a detective played by Donald Sutherland on a missing person’s case. It was the first movie in a series that fans have unofficially dubbed Pakula’s “paranoia trilogy” along with 1974’s ‘The Parallax View’ and 1976 ‘All the President’s Men’.
1974’s ‘Chinatown’ is another hard-boiled detective story, directed by Roman Polanski and starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunnaway. ‘Chinatown’ won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (for Robert Towne), and the Golden Globes for Best Drama, Best Director, Best Actor (Nicholson), and Best Screenplay.
Both ‘Klute’ and ‘Chinatown’ were not only critically acclaimed, but financial hits as well. ‘Chinatown’ has been preserved in the United States National Film Registry. Will ‘The Batman’ be able to make that claim one day?
Robert Pattinson heads up the cast of ‘The Batman’, in the lead role as Batman/Bruce Wayne, with Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman/Selina Kyle, Paul Dano as The Riddler/Edward Nashton, Colin Farrell as The Penguin/Oswald Cobblepot, Jeffery Wright as GCPD detective James Gordon, Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth, John Turturro as Carmine Falcone, Peter Sarsgaard as Gotham D.A. Gil Colson, and newcomer Jayme Lawson as mayoral candidate Bella Reál. Gil Perez-Abraham and twins Charlie and Max Carver have been cast in undisclosed roles. Scottish actor Alex Ferns is RUMORED to be playing Commissioner Pete Savage.
Another RUMOR is that despite the inclusion of multiple “supervillains,” Turturro’s Carmine Falcone is ‘The Batman’s BIG bad guy.
‘The Batman’ is scheduled to arrive in theaters on June 25, 2021, but will most likely be delayed due to the current pandemic. Check back later for updates!
