The Batman director pulled the movie out of the DC Extended Universe

In the past 30 years, at least five men have played Batman on the big screen, from Michael Keaton in 1992’s Batman Returns all the way through Ben Affleck in last year’s Zack Snyder’s Justice League. And now there’s a new Batman movie coming around the corner: The Batman, starring  Twilight veteran Robert Pattinson in the lead role and featuring Dawn of the Planet of the Apes director Matt Reeves behind the camera.

But how do you reboot Batman again? We’ve seen so many versions of this story by now, not just on the big screen but in many a TV show and cartoon. Well, to start, Reeves pivoted from the script’s original direction, which had Batman interacting with other characters from the then-floundering DC Extended Universe, like Aquaman or Wonder Woman.

“Ben [Affleck] had been working on a version of the script,” Reeves told Esquire, “and I said, ‘Here’s the thing: I respect that the DC Universe has become an extended universe and all the movies were kind of connected. But another Batman film, it shouldn’t have to carry the weight of connecting the characters from all those other movies. I didn’t want them in there.”

And so they were gone. Instead, Batman will face off with some of the classic villains from his rogue’s gallery, including the Penguin (a heavily made up Colin Farrell), Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz) and the Riddler (Paul Dano), who in this version of the story is a demented serial killer murdering the elite of Gotham City.

The Batman will take cues from Batman: Year One

For his movie, Reeves was heavily influenced by the landmark comic Batman: Year One by Frank Miller, which shows us a Batman who’s still getting the hang of this whole crime-fighting thing. “Of course, the idea [to fit with the Year One story] was to make him a younger actor,” Reeves said in explaining his decision to cast Pattinson. “And in the process of writing the movie, I watched [the 2017 Safdie brothers film] Good Time, and I thought, ‘Okay, he’s got an inner kind of rage that connects with this character and a dangerousness, and I can feel this desperation.’ And I became dead-set on it being Rob. And I had no idea if Rob had any interest! Because, of course, he had done all of these indie movies after he established himself in Twilight.”

"He’d heard that we were doing this and got excited about the idea that there was going to be another version of this character. And so when I met him, and he read the script, we talked for a long, long time and I realized, ‘This guy is a massive fan.’"

And indeed, it sounds like Pattinson has been thinking about what makes Bruce Wayne tick. “There is this rule with Batman: he must not kill,” Pattison told Premiere. “It can be interpreted in two ways. Either he only wants to inflict the appropriate punishment, or he wants to kill and his self-control prevents him from doing so.”

Based on how furious Batman is in the trailers for the movie, Pattinson is definitely going with Interpretation Number Two.

“I’m vengeance.” Okay, yeesh, I was just leaving.

This Bruce Wayne is like a “Batman Kurt Cobain”

As you can see, this Batman is definitely lives on the darker side of life. There are emo vibes throughout, with Batman’s black eyeliner getting an especial amount of attention when it debuted. “You can’t wear a cowl and not wear that. All of the Batmen wear that,” Reeves said. “I just loved the idea of taking off [the mask] and under that there’s the sweating and the dripping and the whole theatricality of becoming this character.”

Then there’s the Nirvana song in that trailer above. That was another influence on Reeves. “Early on, when I was writing, I started listening to Nirvana, and there was something about ‘Something in the Way,’ which is in the first trailer, which is part of the voice of that character.”

"When I considered, ‘How do you do Bruce Wayne in a way that hasn’t been seen before?’ I started thinking, ‘What if some tragedy happened and this guy becomes so reclusive, we don’t know what he’s doing? Is this guy some kind of wayward, reckless, drug addict?’ And the truth is that he is a kind of drug addict. His drug is his addiction to this drive for revenge. He’s like a Batman Kurt Cobain."

That tragedy, of course, is the murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents, but even though this movie is set early in Batman’s career, it isn’t an origin story. “We’ve seen it so many times,” Reeves said. “It’s been done too much. I knew we couldn’t do that.”

The Batman will redesign the Batmobile

Reeves also has a pretty clear vision for the Batmobile, which will look like nothing we’ve seen in a long time. “The Nolan films established the Batmobile as a tank, which was a brilliant idea,” he said. “But I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if this guy is a loner and a gearhead and fashioning these things by himself, taking parts of other cars and kit cars?’ So it’s recognisable as a car this time. But it’s like a muscle car. One that he’s made himself.”

Overall, it sounds like Reeves has made a Batman movie worth checking out. “I’m very proud of it,” he said. “I felt it was the best version of the story that we could possibly do to justify having another Batman.” You always have to have a reason, and from the beginning that was the mission for me.”

Of course, even though the new movie doesn’t have any connections to the wider DCEU, it may start its own cinematic universe; there are already plans for HBO Max shows revolving around the Penguin and the Gotham City police department. “It will obviously have a lot to do with how people receive this film,” Reeves said of the spinoffs. “But a lot of things are in the works.”

The Batman is due out on March 4.

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