While trailers for The Batman have been released, and thus we do know a bit about what the upcoming movie is all about, there’s clearly still a lot that we’re not seeing yet. While the movie certainly has all the major elements that we expect from a Batman movie, it seems that Matt Reeves has put together a very intricate script. It’s so intricate in fact that he was perhaps a bit over protective of even the slightest changes to according to Jeffrey Wright, Something Reeves feels a bit bad about now.
Speaking to Movie Maker, Jeffrey Wright related a story about reviewing the script with Matt Reeves, where Wright made a comment about changing a punctuation and Reeves apparently balked at it. According to Wright, who plays the first Black Commissioner Gordon in the new movie, Reeves felt that even simple punctuation was necessary in the script, everything there had a purpose. Wright explained...
There were times when I thought, maybe we don’t need that comma there. And he’s like, ‘Wait a minute — that comma relates to a comma in the next scene. If you take that one out, then it changes the value of the next one.’ It’s a really tightly woven script.
It certainly must be a tightly woven script if the removal of a comma might cause the entire thing to unravel. When confronted with the story from Jeffrey Wright, while writer/director Matt Reeves’ doesn’t seem to remember the specific incident, he doesn’t discount that it happened at all, though he does feel that perhaps he overreacted a bit, saying…
I’m sure that is true. Hearing that makes me feel somewhat bad.
It’s certainly not uncommon for writers to be protective of their work. They’re proud of what they’ve done and we’ve all heard stories of writers being frustrated when actors come in and change the writer’s work. Frequently the writers don’t appreciate it.
It seems this may have been the cause of Matt Reeves’ reluctance to change anything in his script. He saw each comma as having a purpose, and removing one meant that something else in the script no longer worked. At the same time, Reeves follows this up by saying that he’s not an actor, and he ultimately believes it is the job of actors like Jeffrey Wright to come in and interpret the words their way. Though Reeves does explain the comma situation, saying…
But the specificity of the comma has to do with emphasis — and that is narrative. There are moments when the comma is narrative, the comma is something that sets something apart that’s going to come back in an important way. And this story, in particular, is the most intricate narrative I have ever, ever tried to tackle.
Matt Reeves has written some great scripts, so the idea that this is his most intricate is exciting. Though this is likely also going to end up being his longest script. Co-star Colin Farrell has sung the praises of the script as well. We'll find out just what that means when The Batman arrives in theaters in March. At least we hope it will.
