Coverage of last week’s advance screening and Q&A for The Batman continues with a look at how filmmaker Matt Reeves hopes to see the future of his Dark Knight universe shape up. The director joined producer Dylan Clark and stars Robert Pattinson and Zoë Kravitz at the Warner Bros. studio lot to discuss the film after the screening, and part of the conversation included the potential for more movies in a trilogy — or possibly more than one trilogy — and setting up Batman’s rogues gallery of villains and world of Gotham in a grounded, illusion-of-realism manner.
You can read my first article here, including discussion about Zoë Kravitz’s Catwoman having potential for a spinoff — possibly a film or an HBO Max miniseries, which could mean a prequel since you don’t know yet what does or doesn’t happen with her in The Batman, dear readers. With Gotham PD already in development as a live-action HBO Max series that’s in continuity with the film, as well as the Penguin HBO Max series with Colin Farrell reprising his villainous role, it’s a no-brainer that more The Batman spinoffs will be announced. I’d be surprised if one spinoff in the filmmakers’ minds isn’t inspired by the Ed Brubaker-Darwyn Cooke comic book storyline “The Dark End of the Street” (or perhaps another Catwoman story from those collaborators).
Also worth note from that article is my appreciation for all of Warner’s careful Covid protocols that made this the only studio press screening or Q&A event I’ve attended the entire pandemic. They took great care and I appreciate that it was one of the few times in two years that I’ve felt confident and safe going anywhere even semi-public.
This time I’ll focus on the discussions about the future of the Batman franchise, assuming The Batman is successful enough for the studio to greenlight sequels. That said, it’s generally known that everyone involved assumes and agrees to multiple films with Reeves firmly in control, unless something completely unexpected goes wrong.
MORE FROMFORBES ADVISOR
Back in the post-The Dark Knight world of 2008 and the years immediately after director Christopher Nolan’s iconic film, many fans — including myself — discussed and debated how other Batman villains might be “Nolanized” into more grounded versions of their comic book iterations. The consensus seemed to be that it was acceptable, if not preferable, for subsequent Batman movies (again, this is in the years after The Dark Knight but before The Dark Knight Rises) to push the envelope a bit further in exploring still-grounded takes on the best supervillains.
I personally wrote a series of articles — now erased from online, as far as I can tell — about how some of the most popular Batman villains could be “Nolanized” into more “illusion-of-realism” grounded versions that fit into the world of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Other writers and fans likewise imagined their own versions of villains that could exist within the boundaries of Nolan’s urban crime thrillers. Again, there seemed to be a common interest in seeing more willingness to entertain notions of still-grounded but also firmly sci-fi technology for Mr. Freeze, for example. (My own example of how to portray a grounded Mr. Freeze on film can be found here, by the way, and it’s one I’m still pretty proud of.)
So fans will be eager to learn Matt Reeves is of course interested in continuing his plans for Batman into additional films and spinoffs, and part of the plan is to keep adding characters and inspirations from the source material. And that means more rouges gallery.
During the Q&A, Germain Lussier of io9 asked how Reeves chose the villains to use, and how Riddler was adapted into a modernized media villain (as already seen in the trailers in some of his publicity-generating activities).
Reeves replied, “Well, I knew that I wanted to do a story that was— I knew I didn’t want to do an origin story. And I knew that I wanted to do a story that would lean into the detective side of Batman, because you haven’t seen it where it was really in the forefront of the story.
“And so when I started thinking about that, I knew what was important to me was that Batman have the arc of the story. Because a lot of times, once he’s already Batman, he no longer has the arc per se. You might have rogues gallery characters who come in, and in a way they have the grand story, and then Batman is going to battle them in some way.
“I want to do a Batman story where he’s already Batman, but he still was in the early days, and had to find a way to sort of really evolve. And I wanted to do a story that the investigation of this particular mystery would lead him back to something very personal and would rock him to his core.
“So, knowing that I wanted to do that kind of thing, I started sort of thinking about, you know — from “The Long Halloween” I was thinking about Calendar Man and the idea of the different killings. And this idea came to me and I thought, ‘Well we could do a thing where after these crimes, there’s correspondence left for the Batman.’ And the whole idea of being Batman is your power is anonymous. So the idea that somebody is suddenly shining a light on you, that would be very unsettling to him. And I thought that’s a great way in.
“As I started thinking about that and trying to ground it, I thought about the Zodiac [serial killer]. And I thought about how the Zodiac, in this horrific way left all of this sort of disturbing cyphers and communications to the police and to the newspapers, and how upsetting that was. So I thought that actually sounds like a horrifying version of the Riddler, because he was leaving all of these puzzles.
“So the Riddler was part of the conception very early on in trying to figure out which of the rouges gallery characters would communicate in that way with Batman. And so that happened right away. And then I started thinking, to me it’s interesting— like I said before it’s not his [Batman’s] origin, but I thought it would be interesting that as you the details of the crime, that it would take him across the paths of these other characters.”
Reeves then goes into spoiler details I won’t reveal here, regarding ways in which his Batman encounters various other characters — especially villains — in an ever-growing cinematic representation of the world in Batman’s comic book tales. As the trailers and marketing already reveal, that includes not only Selina Kyle’s Catwoman, but also the Penguin and the Riddler.
Reeves continued, “It’s this whole thing where you do a deep dive... The number of comics that I read just to begin, and then watching a bunch of stuff, and reading Mindhunter [:Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit] and learning about profiling serial killers.
“So that was kind of what led to it, and Riddler was first. And then, thinking about the path of how we could cross these iconic characters but in versions you haven’t seen, and versions that weren’t yet the versions know, that was sort of the concept.” Reeves added some additional thoughts that involve spoilers, but the point is Reeves wanted his Riddler grounded in a way audiences could recognize, in a world we could relate to.
Later, discussion turned again to the question of which villains to bring to the screen and what the future might hold for this new Batman.
Eric Goldman of FANDOM asked whether Reeves’ new iteration of Batman might be able to face some of the more fantastical characters from the comics, such as Clayface or Man-Bat.
“Here’s the thing,” Reeves answered, “In my view, I just feel drawn to finding the grounded version of everything. So to me, it would be a challenge in an interesting way to try and figure out how that could happen. Like, you know, even the idea of something like Mr. Freeze, that’s such a great story, right? And I think there’s actually a grounded version of that story which could be really powerful, and could be really great.
“So I love the fantastical side Batman, but this iteration... to me, I think it is very comics-faithful, but I don’t think that this one is necessarily— it doesn’t lean as hard into the fantastical, I guess. But I think, to me, what would be interesting would be to try and unwind the fantastical and see, how could that make sense here?”
Some other questions and answers came up regarding the expansion of the bat-world, of the rogues gallery, and of other key supporting figures on Batman’s side of the war on crime, and while I don’t want to report too much about that since it could get into spoilerish territory. But the takeaway is, Reeves expressed interest and intent to continue building out the world of Batman to include lots of additional characters and villains who will be explored within the illusionary realism of a grounded approach that still allows for pushing the boundaries a bit like Mr. Freeze, for example.
Which brings us back to all of those years of fan discussions and the desire for a Batman franchise that truly reflects the larger world of rogues gallery, costumed allies and sidekicks, and the sort of crazier extreme threats requiring more than just police and real-world solutions — the kind that require a Batman.
I’m of the opinion that most Batman villains, however seemingly fantastical, can be adapted into a grounded approach while remaining faithful to the comic book inspiration. And I’ve said for the past several years that I trust Matt Reeves, so I believe there are actually only a very few stories or villains who are so extremely fantastical that they might be too hard to adapt into The Batman’s world. Meaning if Reeves gets his wish and continues building the new franchise, we are going to see a whole slew of rogues gallery villains we’ve never seen in live action before.
My coverage of The Batman continues all month with more reports and my full review coming soon, so check back soon.