Hey folks, SlashFilms says there's news on THE BATMAN from Matt Reeves himself: he is finally closing in on a finished script.
The director, speaking at a Television Critics Association panel yesterday, said his 'next couple of weeks' are devoted entirely to THE BATMAN and getting a finished script he is happy with.
We are working on getting our draft the next couple weeks... right now, my head is totally into the script. Right now, I’m going to be leaving here to go back to work on the script.
When pressed about Ben Affleck's now-iffy participation, Reeves is cagy:
There are ways in which all of this connects to DC, to the DC universe as well. We’re one piece of many pieces, so I don’t want to comment on that, except to say that I’m focused very specifically on this aspect of the DC world.
Reeves also made it clear that THE BATMAN would not be a Year One origin story, nor an attempt to link the Affleck Batman with the Nolan Dark Knight; instead, THE BATMAN will be a completely new story in the vein of the comics, with Batman on an investigation in the dark underbelly of Gotham:
We’re not doing any particular [comic]. Year One is one of the many comic books that I love. We are definitely not doing Year One. It’s just exciting to be focused very specifically on a tale that is defining for him and very personal to him. Obviously we’re not doing an origin tale or anything like that. We’re doing a story that is definitively Batman though and trying to tell a story that’s emotional and yet is really about him being the world’s greatest detective and all the things that for me, since I was a kid, made me love Batman.
I’ve talked about making it a very point of view noir-driven definitive Batman story in which he is investigating a particular case and that takes us out into the world of Gotham. I went on a deep dive again revisiting all my favorite comics. Those all inform by osmosis. There’s no continuation of the Nolan films. It’s very much trying to find a way to do this as something that for me is going to be definitively Batman and new and cool.
(I should note that... unearned, exploited The Dark Knight Returns references aside... I am a fan of the Batfleck.) For me, this is the best news I've read about the film since JUSTICE LEAGUE's release; they seem to have taken some lessons from what worked and what failed spectacularly in BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE and JUSTICE LEAGUE, and that is welcome news. I'd love to see something that has the cooler elements of BATMAN RETURNS, like the rooftop combat and the character work with Bruce Wayne, without the silly crap like remote-piloting the Batmobile. I hope they don't give up on Affleck too soon, either, and work to rebuild what Zack Snyder began.
Read the full SlashFilm article here.
-- Precious Roy
