Production is officially underway on Matt Reeves’ The Batman and the latest adaptation of the character will focus on a younger Bruce Wayne, with the style and tone being akin to a detective noir. Where do we sign up?
We know that Robert Pattinson is the Caped Crusader and that the two key villains are Penguin (Colin Farrell) and the Riddler (Paul Dano). But according to what we’ve been hearing lately, Warner Bros. is now pushing Reeves to include even more antagonists. They wouldn’t be major roles like the aforementioned baddies, but rather cameos/small appearances to set up future spinoffs and solo movies.
However, Reeves is said to be against this and thinks too many villains will ruin the film. As such, he’s pushing back and trying to keep the number of antagonists limited to what was in the initial script. And while nothing has been confirmed by the studio just yet in regards to this, this intel comes to us from the same sources who told us National Treasure 3 is in the works at Disney and the Transformers series is being rebooted, both of which we now know to be true. So, we’ve no reason to doubt it.
Truth be told, Reeves is probably right here, as they have enough obstacles for Batman as it is. Besides the two main villains, there’s also Selina Kyle/Catwoman (Zoe Kravitz), who’s always willing to antagonize the hero, and Carmine Falcone, a local gangster with cops, lawyers and judges in his pocket.
Who else do we need in this movie? Warner Bros. is obviously happy with the massive success of Joker and believes there’s an opportunity to branch out Batman characters, particularly villains, and start multiple franchises, but Reeves’ apprehension towards this idea is warranted.
Remember Spider-Man 3? How about The Amazing Spider-Man 2, or even Iron Man 2? These are all examples of studios getting in the ear of the director and wanting to shoe-horn in multiple characters or easter eggs to excite fans for future installments. Unfortunately, this often undermines the movie by muddling the story and losing focus.
Warner Bros. just needs to trust Reeves to guide The Batman in a similar fashion to what he did with the Apes films by allowing him to tell his story the way he wants to. After all, there’s plenty of time to introduce more new characters down the road.
