Earlier this year, Cloverfield and Let Me In director Matt Reeves introduced DC fans and global audiences to a fresh take on Batman’s legacy when he told a true-crime thriller set in the world of Gotham with Robert Pattinson wearing the traditional cape and cowl. The Batman recently landed on HBO Max and immediately starting breaking records for the streaming service, proving the comic-book adaptation’s overwhelming popularity. This explains why The Batman 2 already has been announced, and while Reeves has yet to reveal the collaborators who will return for the sequel, one of the director’s team members has shared ideas for the follow-up film.
The Batman will arrive on Blu-ray and DVD on May 24, so production designer James Chinlund sat down with select press to talk about his work on the movie and his collaborations with Matt Reeves. The two worked on both Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the Apes before taking their shared talents to Gotham. And it was the praise for the design and creation of the moody Gotham that made Chinlund so proud when the positive reviews for The Batman dropped. Which is why, when we asked Chinlund what he hopes to explore in The Batman 2, he told us:
I think the world is just limitless. It certainly was so much fun, for me, building The Iceberg Lounge and the bridge. And I think that as a designer, we each get to add our piece to Gotham, and the assembly and the history (of that city). It’s so much fun just to see that big map expanding and growing. So I just hope the next one lets us explore some places we haven't been before.
Robert Pattinson’s Batman visited The Iceberg Lounge a few times during the course of The Batman, mainly to get information from The Penguin, played masterfully by Colin Farrell. The Irish actor admitted to being giddy with excitement at playing this classic DC villain, and it’s my hope that the Lounge and other lairs designed by Oswald Cobblepot can present new challenges for Bruce Wayne.
Locations already covered by The Batman include the Bat Cave (which changed drastically from the time we saw it in the initial trailer to the finches film), Wayne Tower, the inside of the Gotham Police Department, an orphanage funded by the Wayne family, and, of course, Arkham Asylum. That’s where The Riddler (Paul Dano) ends up… and where Batman would have confronted The Joker (Barry Keoghan) in a scene that Matt Reeves chose to delete. There are countless sections of Gotham that can be explored in The Batman 2, and many of them will be driven by the plot and choice of villain, so for now, we will have to wait and see.
So will James Chinlund, who told us that he has not officially been invited back to work as the production designer on The Batman 2. But given his recent track record of working on Reeves’ films, and the praise that he received for his work in designing a different take on Gotham, we’re confident that Chinlund will be on staff for the Batman sequel.
Need a refresher course on the plot? We broke down The Batman’s ending scenes, and also compiled a list of where every key The Batman character was by the conclusion of the story. While you wait for more information on The Batman, scan the list of upcoming DC movies to see what else you will be able to watch in a theater.
