Matt Reeves has some choice comparisons for his Batman film.

I remember back when the DC Extended Universe was getting underway. It had the real potential to set itself apart from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I love the MCU, but up until maybe halfway through its second phase, I never really felt like there were a lot of director-focused movies. There weren’t movies I could point to and say “that’s a movie from that guy!” They were, by and large, very solid safe movies with only vague fingerprints from those behind the camera. 

With DC, there was the potential for real directorial control. Warner Bros. was seen as a director-focused studio, and to see them giving Zack Snyder as much creative freedom as they were was cool. Of course, they got gun-shy. They tampered with the theatrical cut of Batman v Superman, they destroyed Suicide Squad, and they butchered Justice League. It wasn’t until that trifecta of terrible that they seemed to realize they had lost their way. Instead of relying on filmmakers to tell stories, they tried to shoehorn everything into a brand-new universe. 

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And man did it fail. 

Now, the DC Extended Universe is in a new phase — one where fillmmakers’ visions are left for many of us to see. It’s because of this that it’s no surprise that the studio agreed to give director Matt Reeves full creative freedom on The Batman.

“You never know whether the people in charge of those I.P.s [intellectual properties] are going to be open to your vision,” Reeves told The New York Times. “But if they weren’t, I wouldn’t have done Batman. I was like, look, there have been some great Batman films and I don’t want to just make a Batman film. I want to do something that has some emotional stakes. My ambition is for it to be incredibly personal using the metaphors of that world.”

That’s great news for film fans everywhere, but are there any comparisons we can have in regards to his vision of The Batman? We know it will lean into mystery heavily so we can see Batman as a detective, but are there any landmark films we can look to?

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“It feels like this really odd throwback to the movies I came up on from the ’70s, like Klute or Chinatown. I’m not saying we’re achieving anything like that. Those are masterpieces. But that’s the ambition.”

I think I’d go a bit nuts (in a good way) if he was able to achieve anything remotely close to those movies. Both are classics in cinema and to bring those mystery and thriller elements into a Batman story would be a sight to see.

All in all, this is great news for The Batman, but it continues to be great news for the DCEU as a whole. The studio seems to have shaken itself of the shackles of its own shared universe. Their movies going forward may connect in some ways and may not in others. What seems to be most important is that you have a filmmaker who isn’t constricted by what came before. In making sure of that, they are more likely to get strong, creative stories from their filmmakers.

What do you think of Reeves’ comments? Let us know your thoughts down below!

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SOURCE: The New York Times