The Batman Director Reveals Why Film Used “I’m Vengeance” Instead of “I’m Batman”

The Batman is very different than previous attempts at a solo film based on the iconic DC Comics character. Matt Reeves made his version of Gotham City as dark as you would imagine the location was supposed to be. One key moment in The Batman, is at the beginning of the film where Batman is beating up a group of thugs in face paint, and utters the phrase “I’m Vengeance”. Fans would notice the phrase is very different than Christian Bale or Michael Keaton using their infamous “I’m Batman” line, and it turns out that that’s what Reeves wanted.  In a new interview with KCRW, the director explains why his film used “I’m Vengeance” as opposed to “I’m Batman”.

“To me, the arc from the beginning, when I was thinking of the story, moves from a place of him declaring himself, which does come from some of the comics, and from the animated series, this notion that he says, not ‘I’m Batman,’ which is obviously the key Keaton line in the Burton movie, but ‘I’m vengeance,’” Reeves told KCRW. “And that this was coming from his personal rage and this primal feeling that he had, that’s really just flailing and trying to make sense of his life, and so that he’s not really self aware. That’s one of the things, too, in the music and the sound of that scene. It kind of builds in a way that you can feel the rage and his heart pounding, pounding, pounding, and then you can feel the sound intent and the music intent at the end of that scene, and even visually is the sense of the adrenaline starting finally to ebb.”

The Batman has a lot of similarities to the first films in the previous two franchises. Tim Burton’s Batman featured the Joker as the main villain and Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins teases the Clown Prince of Crime at the end of the film. Reeves does something similar by introducing Joker to Riddler during the final act of the film. Warner Bros. and the director decided to release a deleted scene from the film a few weeks after the release that shows Batman going to Joker, played by Barry Keoghan, for advice on the Riddler case. The Batman director recently revealed, in an interview with Variety, why the scene mattered to Robert Pattinson’s Batman.

“I thought he would be really insecure about this and he’d probably want to find some way to get into the [Riddler’s] mindset, like in Manhunter or Mindhunter – this idea of profiling somebody, so you can predict his next move,” Reeves explained. He later added, “You realize that they have a relationship, and that this guy obviously did something, and Batman somehow got him into Arkham.”

The film stars Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Zoë Kravitz as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Paul Dano as Edward Nashton/the Riddler, Jeffrey Wright as GCPD’s James Gordon, John Turturro as Carmine Falcone, Peter Sarsgaard as Gotham D.A. Gil Colson, Jayme Lawson as mayoral candidate Bella Reál, Andy Serkis as Alfred, and Colin Farrell as Oswald “Penguin” Cobblepot. The Batman is exclusively in theaters now.

What do you think of Matt Reeves’ use of the line? Are you ready for a The Batman sequel? Let us know your thoughts either in the comments section or by hitting our writer @NateBrail up on Twitter!