The Batman Set Photos Suggest A Long Halloween Setting

The Batman movie is now officially in production, which means DC Comics fans have been keep their eyes glued to the Internet for any kind of set photo or video reveals. Director Matt Reeves has manage to keep a veil of secrecy up on the exact details of the Batman reboot, but now there’s some intriguing evidence about the film’s possible comic book connections. New The Batman set photos have now popped up online, which seem to suggest the film will take place (at least in part) during Halloween. Naturally, that implication has longtime Batman fans buzzing that The Batman is indeed going to be based on the famous storyline of “Batman: The Long Halloween”.

Batman: The Long Halloween was written by Jeph Loeb and drawn by Tim Sale, between 1996 and 1997. The story is a direct sequel to Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One, and sees Batman continuing the fight against Gotham’s organized crime syndicates – namely the Falcone and Maroni crime families. Bruce Wayne / Batman unites with both Catwoman, and lawmen Jim Gordon and Harvey Dent, to help battle the mob on both sides of the law. That quest gets much more complicated when a serial killer named “Holiday” begins assassinating mob family members on every major calendar holiday.

With Gotham thrown into terror, and the mob going crazy with revenge bloodlust, Batman has to investigate every criminal in his rogues gallery to see which one may be committing the grisly murders. As the investigation drags out over the course of the year, Batman becomes baffeled by the case; the mob begins to take justice into its own hands; and Gotham’s supervillains starting going to great lengths to prove they are still scarier or more cunning than Holiday Killer. In the end, the case goes sideways in a big way. Harvey Dent suffers the accident that transforms him into Two-Face; the Falcones are wiped out, shifting the balance of power in Gotham’s underworld; and the true Holiday Killer (Harvey Dent’s wife Gilda) is never even caught.

The Batman has long been suspected as being an adaptation of The Long Halloween, and more and more, the pieces seem to be fitting into place. The film is a detective Noir story; it has an entire lineup of Batman rogues; it also has John Turturro as Carmine Falcone; Zoe Kravitz’ Catwoman; and Peter Sarsgaard as a Gotham D.A. named Gil Colson, who many fans suspect is actually a cover for Harvey Dent. The combination of investigative procedural; comic book pulp; mob drama; and the Wayne Family history tied to the Falcone family, all seems on the table that Reeves is setting. Now with the Halloween setting, the evidence of a Long Halloween movie is definitely mounting.

Upcoming DC movies include Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey now in theaters, Wonder Woman 1984 on June 5th, The Batman on June 25, 2021, The Suicide Squad on August 6, 2021, Black Adam on December 22, 2021, Shazam! 2 on April 1, 2022, The Flash on July 1, 2022, and Aquaman 2 on December 16, 2022.