Matt Reeves is still on the promotional circuit for his Tales From the Loop series, and that means that many more chances to discuss Batman.
What happens when you’re a quarter of the way filming one of the biggest projects of your life and you shut down due to a virus? You talk about the film and make sure people continue to get intrigued by it. As Reeves continues to promote his Amazon series, there is no hesitation in sharing more of his thoughts on The Batman.
Reeves was asked how his Batman will stand out compared to other films of the character, and it seems he has had some definite ideas from the beginning. “The way I loved Apes is the way that I loved Batman, actually. The only two franchises that might have been something I would have connected with, amazingly, are the ones I was approached by. That’s been a very special thing. I can’t say that about almost any other franchise, that they would have been the right fit for me.” He went on to add, “My thing about it, on both of them, is that I had a particular take that, for me, was personal. I feel like if I can’t approach something through a perspective that resonates with me on some personal level, I don’t know where to put the camera, and I don’t know how to talk to the actors. I also felt like there have been some great Batman movies, and I didn’t want to just do a Batman movie. I wanted to do a Batman movie that could be different.”
“I pitched them what I would do, and I said, look, I appreciate that you want me to do a Batman movie, but I don’t want to just do a Batman movie; I want to do a Batman movie that has a chance to be something different, and humanist, and can use the metaphors of the genre,” said Reeves. “It’s the same reason I did the Apes movies. Those movies were incredibly personal to me, despite the fact that they were what they were. So I made my pitch for what it would be, and to my great pleasure, it turned out that they were totally open to that. I took a tremendously long time working with my partners on writing that script, and they waited. And when I turned it in, they wanted to make it. I’ve been incredibly fortunate that they’ve been so open to it being different. And one of the exciting things about it is that it drew an incredibly interesting and talented number of actors to want to be involved in it. To me, that’s been the dream.”
Reeves was asked about the tendency of Batman films to take on sociopolitical concerns, and it is something he is very much aware of, saying, “To me, that’s the joy of working with it. You use those surface elements of it, and you explore them in a way that, I feel, they haven’t been explored yet.” He went on to add, “Nolan had a brilliant take on them, and so did Burton. Everybody has a particular take. For me, I knew that I would be coming into a history of some pretty great movies. And I didn’t want to just do a Batman film; I wanted to do a Batman film where I was allowed to explore the things that matter to me. I was really lucky that they were very excited about that take.”
“All those aspects you’re talking about, they all fit within a context. The movie that we’re making, which is now on pause, is absolutely made in the context of today. It doesn’t ignore any of that. I think that becomes incredibly exciting. It’s like any great tale that you can keep revisiting though the context of the times, and also through the context of human experience, and find new ways to come at the character that illuminates something that’s meaningful to you, and hopefully meaningful to an audience.”
The Batman is currently scheduled to hit theaters on June 25, 2021.
SOURCE: The Daily Beast
