A cursory glance at the internet on any given day makes it abundantly clear that a lot of DC fans aren’t happy with Warner Bros.’ handling of the studio’s comic book adaptations, but The Batman director Matt Reeves doesn’t appear to be one of them.
The filmmaker’s reboot doesn’t even come to theaters until next Friday, but he’s already confirmed that sequel talks are underway, while the first wave of early reactions certainly make it sound as though Robert Pattinson’s debut as the Dark Knight will live up to the sky-high expectations.
Any fresh take on an iconic property such as Batman requires an awful lot of give and take between the creative talent and their corporate overlords, but in an interview with Collider, Reeves said there was only one rule given to him by WB that he couldn’t deviate from.
“What’s so interesting is that they, and to me, the experience on the film, they have been so incredibly supportive and they loved, from the inception, the pitch. Once I wanted to put it into this world and that I wanted to do a detective story noir and that whole thing, they were very responsive. They were very excited about that. I said from the beginning, to do a standalone Batman film, you really have to … There’s a long line of great movies. And so, the idea that you can come and just do another Batman film, it has to be a great Batman film.
You have to set out to do something that feels distinctive and different and definitive. They embraced it the whole time. There was never a moment where they said to me, are you sure? Let’s not. They really leaned into everything, and I’ve had the support to do exact … I mean, I have to say, this movie is exactly the movie I wanted it to be, and they have supported me all the way through it. So no, there was never really that moment. One thing they did do, which was my intention from the beginning, was they said, “Look, it’s important to us that the movie be PG-13.
We want to make sure that we can get this … It’s a Batman movie, and we’re investing so much in it.” And I was like, “Well, in the Apes movies, I tried to sort of find that balance as well.” They were meant to be sort of … They were obviously spectacle and grand entertainment, but there was a level of intensity. I felt like in that same way, I knew that we could push the boundaries of what you could do in a PG-13 movie and still deliver everything I wanted to do.”
Naturally, there were plenty of rumors making the rounds that The Batman would be R-rated, which were debunked by Reeves when he said no such cut of the film existed. Based on the footage, the superhero blockbuster looks dark, gritty, and violent enough as it is, and it’ll push the boundaries of PG-13 as far as they can go.
