The first teaser trailer for Robert Pattinson and Matt Reeves' The Batman promises a Dark Knight Detective movie that isn’t positioning itself as the biggest superhero epic of the moment.
That Matt Reeves named Darwyn Cooke’s Batman: Ego as one of the prime inspirations for his and Mattson Tomlin’s The Batman is encouraging, as that one-shot is both a dark and psychologically introspective melodrama and an eventually (like Batman Begins) optimistic and inspirational Bruce Wayne-centric character play. We got the first teaser for The Batman at last night’s DC Fandome, and what’s striking about it is how much it plays like the antithesis of a blockbuster movie. That’s not to say it won’t make a lot of money when it opens in October of 2021, but it does seem to promise something a number of fans have wanted since the 1990’s, namely a Batman movie that isn’t selling itself as the biggest superhero epic of the moment.
At a glance, the footage looks like a mix between outtakes from Batman Begins and a more buttoned-down variation on Gotham, which is merely a consequence of so many folks playing in the “grimdark/real-world Batman” sandbox since at least 1989. Of course, Gotham got better when it left the real world behind (starting in season two and peaking in season four), but the film’s “it’s like Batman meets Se7en meets Saw” sensibilities would fit right in with the often grotesque and graphically violent Fox TV show. Whether or not Reeves’ Robert Pattinson-led crime story actually ends up with an R-rating, the carnage offered up on Gotham (often perpetrated on innocent bystanders) would unquestionably be R-rated if rated by the MPA.
I’d argue the brutal and intense violence offered by Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the Apes is more than enough for the director to make the Batman movie he wants to make while still staying within the realms of PG-13. More interesting than that the story involves a serial killer (who may or may not be Paul Dano’s Riddler) whose murder spree involves systematic corruption and/or interactions with other Gotham baddies, including Zoe Kravtiz’ Catwoman and Colin Farrell’s Penguin. This really does look to be the street-level, grounded “Dark Knight Detective” movie many of us have been clamoring for. It’s the notion of a Batman movie as “just a movie.”
I do not know how much The Batman will cost, but it’s entirely possible that Reeves’ seemingly grim and grounded city crime story will cost closer to $125 million than $185 million. It’s certainly clear that DC Films is trying to diversify their film output, so that every movie isn’t a mega-bucks would-be blockbuster. And if they can mostly offer smaller flicks like Joker ($63 million), Birds of Prey ($83 million) and Shazam! ($90 million) with only periodic tentpoles (Aquaman, Wonder Woman 1984), well, that would be one way to allow for a series of movies that don’t feel tied together by commercial expectations or formulaic requirements. And yes, that means they can take a chance on “Batman versus Jigsaw.”
The 1989-1997 Batman movies were essentially the Star Wars/James Bond movies of their time in that they were the biggest-sized and biggest-scaled blockbuster events of their time, offering a level of thrills and spectacle that you couldn’t get anywhere else. As such, when Batman returned in Batman Begins, the franchise had to both nurse the wounds of a disliked Batman & Robin and exist in a world where the mere idea of a Batman movie (sans marquee actors as marquee villains no less) was not an automatic event. It earned “just” $371 million worldwide on a $150 million budget, even if that A) included $205 million domestic B) was beloved by audiences and critics with a healthy post-theatrical life.
While The Dark Knight obviously played out as the ultimate breakout sequel, earning rave reviews, capturing the zeitgeist of the moment and earning $1.004 billion worldwide (including a then-second-best-$533 million domestic) on a $180 million budget. However, the comparatively soft earnings for Batman Begins showed that the mere idea of a grounded and grimdark Batman movie, even one that played like a pulpy adventure movie, wasn’t automatically a top-tier tentpole event. And that The Batman, where the biggest action beat is Pattinson wailing on a random henchman, seems to be even less of a big-scale spectacle is either (pessimistically) an overconfidence in the IP or (optimistically) an admittance that audiences have had plenty of “blockbuster” Batman movies.
Continuing that “optimistic” train of thought (Reeves can go as intimate as Let Me In or as big as Cloverfield depending on his whimsy), it’s another example of how we audiences see to only show up for character-specific biggies, often related to the DC/Marvel comic book superhero genre, even as we implicitly give them hurrahs for not entirely embracing the blockbuster mentality. We spent $1.073 billion (without a penny from China) on Joker and thrilled to the $58 million, R-rated rom-com antics of Deadpool while saluting DC Films for the kid-friendly horror sensibilities of Shazam! and the “Guy Ritchie snorting too much cocaine at Quentin Tarantino’s house” aesthetics of Birds of Prey. Yet the general consumer wouldn’t be caught dead seeing the genuine article in a movie theater.
We’ll show up for Logan but not Blood Father, Joker but not You Were Never Really Here, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier while Jack Ryan and John Clarke end up on Amazon
It’s fascinating, in terms of the passage of time and how overwhelmed we’ve become with these once-rare mega-budget cinematic spectacles that The Batman looks exciting precisely because of what it’s not. It’s a Batman movie that’s explicitly selling itself as not the biggest movie of the year or even the post-summer/pre-Christmas season. It’s selling itself as a high-quality serial killer thriller that happens to feature Batman and his supporting cast, which is both a fine example of superhero movies-as-genre approximation and a once-unthinkable evolution for a character who once defined top-tier tentpole blockbuster filmmaking. Come what may, The Batman opens October 1, 2021. To the extent that it resembles Gotham or The Batman (the 2004 toon), I hope it’s closer to (respectively) season four than season one.
