CREATURE OF THE KNiGHT
THE CREATIVE TEAM BEHIND arguably the most anticipated movie of 2022 have a lot to say about The Batman. It’s no secret that they’re fans – so we’re on common ground when SFX catches up with them to discuss rage, reboots and rogues.
The on-screen adventures of Gotham’s protector are a slice of cinematic history that dates back to the ’40s, ahead of the Technicolor madness of Batman: The Movie in 1966. For director and writer Matt Reeves, it’s the latter which served as his first steps into the world of the Dark Knight.
“My introduction to Batman was Adam West, as a kid,” he smiles. “It’s so funny because I recently showed my son, as I was making the movie, Batman ’66. He’s a very sensitive kid. I showed him The Lego Batman Movie, which he flipped out for, which is, by the way, a great version of Batman. I love Lego Batman. But I couldn’t show him any of the other movies, because they’re all very, very challenging and dark.
“But it’s interesting because he watched Batman ’66 and then he came out dressed in the Batman Halloween costume that I had bought him that he’d never worn,” he grins. “It was because he had the same experience that I did, which was he didn’t see any of the irony or the satire. He just saw Batman, and he thought he was cool.
“That was exactly me when I was a kid. I was probably five years old. I saw that series and to me, I didn’t see anything funny about it. I just thought, ‘Wow, Batman is really cool’. Just the idea of what that character was appealed to me, the way he dressed and him in his Batmobile and him being a hero. It was very captivating. Of course, I am a big fan of the comic books and a big fan of the movies. But truly the introduction was Adam West.”
BAT TO BA SICS
There have been a further seven. Though this is not an origin story – at least not for Batman.
