It's a good year to be a DC movie fan. Beyond the still mildly insane fact that Zack Snyder's Justice League is only days away from its release, we're also getting a DC movie planned for the big screen. James Gunn's The Suicide Squad looks to take that franchise in a slightly different direction that should be fun. Matt Reeves' The Batman was originally planned for this year before its delay to 2022, and it looks to give us an entirely fresh look at the caped crusader. This film is one that a lot of people are excited about, including James Gunn himself.
James Gunn was recently asked on Twitter about a statement that he had made previously that Matt Reeves' The Batman as his most anticipated of DC's upcoming slate. That includes not only a new Batman movie, but sequels to the popular Shazam! and Aquaman franchises. Gunn explained that the reason he's looking forward to the film is because of the director, who Gunn says has a unique ability to let his own artistry shine through, no matter how big or commercial the project in question is. In hish words,
Yes. Matt Reeves is one of a handful of directors whose artistry can be seen in every film he's directed, no matter how big. His personal voice, & his humanity, have never been drowned out by commercial or corporate pressures.
To be fair, I would put James Gunn in that same category, who previously made a pair of superhero movies that included a talking raccoon, and was still able to make his own unique voice come through. But Gunn's comments about Matt Reeves are probably felt by many people. Reeves was primarily a TV director before he helmed 2008's Cloverfield and two years later he directed the American version of Let the Right One In. From there he made a huge leap to the recent Planet of the Apes trilogy, which were both massive commercial successes and massive critical hits as well.
Balancing the artistic and the business sides of movie making is always difficult. The industry is a business that needs to make money, but it's making money from the creative work of artists. At once you want to give people something they will want to spend money on, but that doesn't always mean giving them "what they want." James Gunn says that Matt Reeves has been able to navigate all that better than most.
And that does make the The Batman a very interesting project. Just how will this take on Batman be different from the several versions we've seen before remains to be seen. Reeves has talked about a desire to focus more on Batman as a detective, a major element of the character that is largely left out of the theatrical adaptations. The movie is just about one year away at this point, but it feels like it will be worth the wait.
