Matt Reeves Compares Cloverfield and The Batman: "We Didn't Bomb Gotham Yet" (Exclusive)

By Nathaniel Brail

Matt Reeves delivered one heck of a Batman movie last year with The Batman, and he's developing several other projects in that universe. Reeves is hard at work on The Penguin spinoff series that will begin filming this year, and there's even a series focusing on Arkham Asylum in the works for HBO Max. The Batman director's job seems pretty safe as Warner Bros. Pictures recently signed him to an overall deal and even made sure his universe was safe after hiring James Gunn and Peter Safran as the co-CEOs of the newly minted DC Studios. Gunn ad Safran will definitely be doing their own thing with the DC Universe and will more than likely recast the main Justice League role. There was a rumor that the co-CEOs were looking for a way to bring Robert Pattinson and Reeves' Batman into the main DCU but that was quickly debunked. Reeves has been doing press for Cloverfield's 15th anniversary and 4K Blu Ray release, and ComicBook.con's Chris Killian got the chance to chat with the director and he revealed an update on his sequel to The Batman. Also in the interview, Reeves compared the damage at the of both his films.

"Well, Gotham is in trouble, but New York… a giant monster has been traipsing about knocking over buildings," Reeves told us. "I think that's a little worse because they had to come in and bomb the monster. We didn't come in and bomb Gotham yet."

While watching The Batman, you can tell that The Batman is definitely more Batman heavy than Bruce Wayne. Pattinson doesn't really get to explore the duality of the character as much as previous actors, but it really works in the films favor. Reeves wanted his film to put Batman at the forefront and leave Bruce Wayne with room for growth. The director previously revealed to Total Film why The Batman is more Batman and less Bruce Wayne.

"I knew that I didn't want to do an origin tale and I didn't want to do a story where you saw Bruce going through the trauma and then becoming Batman because that has been done brilliantly many times. But I still wanted to make sure that we had Batman at the center, whose story was the main story, so that it was his character arc, but he had not already mastered himself," Reeves explained. "And so you could see him evolve, and we could see him rise to the challenge. In doing that, I wanted to lean into the idea of making this a 'World's Greatest Detective' thriller. That meant putting Batman more than Bruce Wayne right at the center, because that's the person who would be trying to solve this mystery." 

Directed by Matt Reves, The Batman 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 film is streaming on HBO Max now.

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