The Batman Director Teases Film’s Comic Inspirations

Work has only just begun on The Batman, but director Matt Reeves is working out the film’s vision with clear precision. The DC Extended Universe is set to welcome its first Batman standalone with Reeves, and fans are more than eager to learn about the comic arcs which will feed into The Batman. Now, the director has opened up just a bit about the movie’s inspiration, and it will get fans excited.

Recently, Reeves sat down to chat with Variety’s Playback Podcast. The director stopped by to talk about War for the Planet of the Apes, but the topic of The Batman inevitably came up. When asked about his favorite Batman comic arcs, Reeves said he would not say anything specific to avoid undue speculation, but he did say this:

“I could imagine the stories being noir, like, heavily point-of-view driven. The original stories in the early days were detective stories….I can tell you this: we are looking into all of those [comic arcs], and I’m also looking into ways it feels personal,” Reeves revealed.

“Like I said, the thing that’s interesting is the way in which you connect to these stories. I think I’ll draw inspiration from these stories, but I want it to be rooted in something that feels not personal to me but relevant to the time.”

When it comes to Batman, Reeves has a personal interest in the series. The director told Variety he was a big fan of the hero as a kid. “I was also a Batman fan. There were these dolls when I was kid…They had Batman and Robin and all the Planet of the Apes,” he said. “I was captivated by him as a character. I had all the toys and Batmobile.”

Nowadays, Reeves is approaching Batman in a similar way he’s done another character he loves. The director said he sees a lot of similarities between Caesar and Bruce Wayne.

“I think what I see in Batman that I find so interesting is that – in a way – he reminds me of Caesar. He is a character who with a really troubled past who is grappling within himself to find the way to do the right thing in a really imperfect world – in a corrupt world,” Reeves admitted.

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In Justice League, fueled by his restored faith in humanity and inspired by Superman’s selfless act, Bruce Wayne enlists the help of his newfound ally, Diana Prince, to face an even greater enemy. Together, Batman and Wonder Woman work quickly to find and recruit a team of metahumans to stand against this newly awakened threat. But despite the formation of this unprecedented league of heroes—Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg and The Flash—it may already be too late to save the planet from an assault of catastrophic proportions.

Justice League is directed by Zack Snyder, from a screenplay by Chris Terrio, based on a story by Snyder and Terrio, and stars Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot, Jason Momoa, Ezra Miller, Ray Fisher, Amy Adams, Willem Dafoe, Jesse Eisenberg, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen, J. K. Simmons, and Ciarán Hinds.