Matt Reeves has been chatting about his plan for The Batman Part II, and offered some early hints as to its direction.
Matt Reeves is hard at work on The Batman Part II, his follow up to the 2022 noir-infused take on the Dark Knight that starred Robert Pattinson in the lead role.
The film released to general enthusiasm and made over $750m at the global box office, doing enough to warrant a sequel. Praise was particularly focused on the way Reeves and his collaborators created a stylishly-dark take on Gotham City while retaining a rather grounded feel. That’s a tricky feat to manage, especially when your film is focused around a guy running (well, more walking in The Batmani) round dressed like a giant bat, but manage it they did.
A deeper exploration of Gotham seems to be on Reeves’ mind as he makes final adjustments to the script ahead of production next year. The director has been chatting to SFX Magazine via Deadline) about the general direction of the sequel. There are no major spoilers here, just some general thoughts from Reeves on his aims for the project.
Reeves explains that he wants “these stories to be a meditation on the way Gotham is the way it is. It’s such a brutal place and we’re digging for the answers as to why these people’s lives are this way”.
The Batman II is “going to dig into the epic story about deeper corruption, and it goes into places that he couldn’t anticipate in the first one. The seeds of where this goes are all in the first movie, and it expands in a way that will show you aspects of the character you never got to see.”
It looks like Reeves’ take on the comic book source material is set to explore Gotham’s psychology, hopefully in a way we haven’t seen before. Nolan of course reckoned with this theme across his acclaimed Dark Knight trilogy but Reeves will get the opportunity to go deeper than his predecessor because there’s a whole spin-off TV show coming to our screens that can further dive into these ideas.
Reeves adds that this show,The Penguin will tie in directly to the opening of the film, stating that Colin Farrell – who will star as Oswald Cobblepot, the titular Penguin – will feature in the movie. “There are details that actually connect right into the way the next movie begins,” says Reeves, “and the way that Oz enters that world as we hand the baton back to Batman, and Batman is on another case.”
It all sounds intriguing but Reeves has the weight of legacy to contend with. Second entries in the Batman franchise are when filmmakers really come into their own with their interpretation of the character. Hopefully, Reeves and his team can find that same flourish. We’ll bring you more on this one as we hear it.
