The Batman Trailer Has Fans Wondering if the Film Will be Rated R

The first official footage from The Batman debuted tonight thanks to director Matt Reeves and DC 's FanDome digital event, and it looks to be putting the "dark" in Dark Knight. Comparisons between this new version of the character and David Fincher's dark serial killer drama Se7en quickly sprung up online, and this has got fans wondering about the rating for the film. Though no theatrically released live-action Batman movie from Warner Bros. has been given an "R" Rating by the MPA, the footage seen in this trailer has lead many to believe that The Batman could be the first of its kind.

Matt Reeves nor the studio have even commented on the prospects of The Batman's ratings thus far, nor was it mentioned at tonight's panel. This adults only rating probably wouldn't be the deathblow to its box office prospects that Warner Bros. might assume, especially after last year's Joker went on to gross over a billion worldwide, but for now it's unclear what the rating will be when the film is finally released.

To his credit, Reeves opened up about the films that influenced him in making the movie, and the three films he name dropped specifically are R rated movies.

"Well, because the movie is a detective story because it is a thriller in the sort of cop world and because it's about corruption, we're treating this Batman story as if this could have happened," Reeves said during The Batman panel at FanDome. "The idea is that Batman doesn't have the ability to have superhero powers he just has superhero focus and superhero drive. Chinatown was a key one because Jake Gittes, in investigating that sort of series of crimes that were part of that story, he discovered the depths of corruption in Los Angeles and so in that way it's like a classic Noir. This series of murders that Batman is investigating are very much in that mode so Chinatown was a really big one."

He continued, "The idea of that kind of gritty flawed, the humanity of it that was very much inspired by those kinds of movies by like French Connection and other sort of cop movies like that, I would say even a movie like Taxi Driver the description of the place and very much getting inside of somebody's head and I guess a lot of really sort of 70s Street grounded stories."

Check back here for further details on The Batman's rating as we learn it, for now the film is scheduled to arrive in theaters next fall.