When Matt Reeves signed on to direct The Batman for Warner Bros. there was a vision that he had for the story he wanted to tell, and he didn’t want that vision to be compromised by the studio and its executives. So the studio gave him full creative control over the movie, except for the part where The Penguin isn’t allowed to smoke in the film.
The movie that Reeves made ended up being PG-13 and in a recent interview with Collider, the director said that he wanted to “push the boundaries of what you could do in a PG-13 movie.” He also talked about his vision for the film and how it turned out exactly the way he wanted it to. He said:
“Once I wanted to put it into this world and that I wanted to do a detective story noir and that whole thing, they were very responsive. They were very excited about that,” Reeves said. “I said from the beginning, to do a standalone Batman film, you really have to [do something different]. There’s a long line of great movies. And so, the idea that you can come and just do another Batman film, it has to be a great Batman film. You have to set out to do something that feels distinctive and different and definitive.”
When talking about the support he got from the studio, he said:
“They embraced it the whole time. There was never a moment where they said to me, ‘Are you sure? Let’s not.’ They really leaned into everything, and I’ve had the support to do exact … I mean, I have to say, this movie is exactly the movie I wanted it to be, and they have supported me all the way through it.”
That’s great to hear! It’s a shame that they didn’t offer other previous filmmakers the same courtesy. Reeves went on to talk about the PG-13 rating and how that was important for the studio:
“One thing they did do, which was my intention from the beginning, was they said, ‘Look, it’s important to us that the movie be PG-13. We want to make sure that we can get this … It’s a Batman movie, and we’re investing so much in it,’ and I was like, ‘Well, in the [Planet of the] Apes movies, I tried to sort of find that balance as well.’ They were meant to be sort of … They were obviously spectacle and grand entertainment, but there was a level of intensity.”
With The Batman, Reeves added, “I felt like in that same way, I knew that we could push the boundaries of what you could do in a PG-13 movie and still deliver everything I wanted to do.”
The Batman hits theaters on March 4th and I can’t wait to watch it!