Matt Reeves Says The Batman Production Shutdown Is Giving Him a Chance to Assess the Film

The Batman is one of countless upcoming films that is being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, as production was forced to shut down to help encourage social distancing. It’s unclear at this point when a lot of films and TV shows will be able to resume production, much less how release dates will eventually be affected. Even then, the shutdown has created an interesting situation for the film’s writer-director, Matt Reeves. In a recent interview with The Daily Beast, Reeves spoke about how the pandemic has impacted the film, including the tragic loss of one of its crew members, Andrew Jack. At the same time, Reeves said that the time away from filming The Batman has given him time to take stock of what has already been filmed.

“There is that thing too, when you get to push pause. I’ve worked on some other movies where, for various reasons, you have a shutdown—whether it’s an actor gets sick and needs time to recover, or actually one time I got sick and needed time to recover. I do find that any time you’re in the midst of something enormous where you can suddenly stop and take a little stock of where you’re at, that can be a creative gift as well. But I think the hardest thing is just that we lost a beloved crew member. That, to me, is something we’re all still dealing with.”

This echoes previous comments that Reeves has made, namely that he will look over existing The Batman footage and hopefully find pleasant surprises, which could impact production once it resumes.

“It happens any time you shoot anything. The unexpected — happy accidents and things you didn’t quite expect: That is the lightning in a bottle for something that is alive,” Reeves explained earlier this month. “I would say that the changes really have to do with ‘Oh, seeing the tone of this’ with these scenes we haven’t done which connect to that part of the storyline. It feels like there might be an opportunity to explore some of that unexpected tone that we found. With these movies, you never have enough prep time, because they’re so complex and so enormous in so many ways. It also gives me a moment to think about the larger sequences that have yet to come up and how I want to realize those.”

The Batman will star Robert Pattinson as the titular caped crusader, with Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman, Colin Farrell as The Penguin, Paul Dano as The Riddler, Jeffrey Wright as Commissioner Gordon, John Turturro as Carmine Falcone, Peter Sarsgaard as Gil Colson, Jayme Lawson as Bella Real, and Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth.

The Batman is set to be released on June 25, 2021.