(UTV | COLOMBO) – There’s been various screen takes on Batman over the years from Tim Burton’s gothic camp to Christopher Nolan’s contemporary real-world version to Zack Snyder’s darkly brutal stylised take.
Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” is generally seen as the best live-action film version to date (with legitimate arguments to be made for both Burton’s “Batman Returns” and Nolan’s “Batman Begins”). However, Matt Reeves’ upcoming “The Batman” film aims to beat it.
Speaking with Empire, producer Dylan Clark says they intend to meet the challenge of the very high bar set by the best previous “Batman” films:
“As the first standalone ‘Batman’ in ten years, the hope is we can lay a foundation that you can build stories upon… I’ve said this to Chris Nolan directly: ‘Look, we’re trying to be the best Batman ever made, and we’re going to try to beat you.’ Matt is interested in pushing this character to his emotional depths and shaking him to his core.”
Indeed the film seems to bode something more akin to movies like “Se7en” and “Prisoners” than prior Batman films, a darker noir take which Reeves is adamant about doing something special with:
“I’ve only ever made each movie as a passion project. This even more so, because when you know, something has been done well before, and is so beloved, you can’t just come in and sleepwalk through it. You have to shoot for something. We’re trying to leave our mark on this.”
The film’s star Robert Pattinson says he’s already planned out where things could go with his Bruce Wayne character, telling the outlet: “I’ve made a kind of map for where Bruce’s psychology would grow over two more movies. I would love to do it.”
Part of that will be exploring Bruce’s relationship with his family’s butler Alfred Pennyworth. Gone is the sage father figure, the new film starts with the pair very much on the outs. Reeves says:
“Bruce is on this nihilistic journey, and they’ve pulled apart … It’s got to the point where they almost no longer talk. If they bump into each other in the corridor, it’s a very icy and painful greeting. They almost live in separate worlds now.”
In the issue, it’s revealed Bruce Wayne built the new Batmobile himself which is why there’s a tangibility to it as compared to the leftover military tech of Nolan’s trilogy, or the stylised and overly manufactured look of the Burton, Schumacher and Snyder eras. Reeves says:
“It has to make an appearance out of the shadows to intimidate, so I thought of it almost like Stephen King’s [possessed motor] Christine. I liked the idea of the car itself as a horror figure, making an animalistic appearance to really scare the hell out of the people Batman’s pursuing. There is absolutely a horror-genre aspect to this movie.”
The magazine also talked with the film’s villains with Zoe Kravitz confirming the film serves as an ‘origin’ story for her Catwoman, Paul Dano saying his Riddler character was inspired by the Zodiac Killer, while Colin Farrell says his take on The Penguin is very much inspired by John Cazale’s work as Fredo in “The Godfather” trilogy:
“[Matt Reeves] mentioned Fredo to me, because Fredo’s crippled by the insignificance that he lives within, in a family that is full of very strong, very bright, very capable, very violent men. Which is why he commits the act of betrayal that he does, because he’s weak, he’s kind of broken, and he’s in pain.
There is a kind of fracture at the core of Oz, which fuels his desire and his ambition to rise within this criminal cabal. Where that rise goes… I would love to get to explore that in the second film, if that was ever to happen.”
Clark confirms that while Warners “has a multiverse where they’re exploring different ways to use the character,” this film does not get involved in any of that and is completely standalone to other DC projects.
“The Batman” opens in cinemas on March 4th 2022.