It wasn’t that long ago that things were looking pretty shaky over on Ben Affleck’s Batman movie. First there was news of major re-writes and then Affleck stepped down as director and Planet of The Apes director Matt Reeves stepped up. With Reeves’ War for the Planet of the Apes about to hit theaters, and getting tremendous reviews, he’s been fielding plenty of questions for the Batflick while on his press tour.
In an interview with “New Trailer Buzz,” Reeves spoke about what drew him to the film:
“One of the reasons I was drawn to [The Batman] is that I had a similar obsession to Batman when I was younger that I had with the Apes series, which I was obsessed with. I see a parallel emotionally between Caesar and Batman, in that they’re both tortured and trying to sort of grapple within themselves to try and do the right thing in a very imperfect and, to some degree, corrupt world. It’s really that emotionality that I’m interested.”
One of the things that fans loved about Affleck’s take on a Batman solo film was that he wanted to give it a noir vibe, like Batman meets the Maltese Falcon. It looks like Reeves agrees:
“In all of my films, what I try to do, in an almost Hitchcockian sense, is use the camera and use the storytelling so that you become that character, and you emphasize with that point of view. There’s a chance to do an almost noir-driven, detective version of Batman that is point-of-view driven in a very, very powerful way, that hopefully is going to connect you to what’s going on inside of his head and inside of his heart.”