Matt Reeves Says WB Had Only One Condition For ’The Batman’

It’s known that movie studios are those who are hiring directors for the movies and that they always give them some guidelines on how to make a specific movie. Of course, directors are always counting that studios will give them some creative freedom while working on the movie.

There are only a few directors in Hollywood who can work on the movie the way they see it fit without studios interfering, but those directors are part of the elite, like Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan. Of course, it all depends on the studios’ flexibility and how much freedom they’re willing to give to a director.

Sometimes, collisions between a studio and a director can have a really negative impact on the movie. DC movies Suicide Squad (2016) and Justice League (2017) are the best examples of that. Some directors can even leave the project due to creative differences, but that usually happens before the movie begins production, if the collision happens during or after the production, that can create a lot of problems.

Because of the way they handled some of the DC movies, particularly Justice League, Warner Bros. drew a lot of rage from the DC fans, and some of them even called for the boycott of the future DC movies because of the way that WB treated Zack Snyder and his vision of the DCEU.

But, what’s happened, happened, and Warner Bros. and DC have already geared up for the future of the DC movies, which also includes the upcoming movie The Batman, which is set to be released in less than a week. In a recent interview, director Matt Reeves revealed that WB wanted only one thing for this movie, and the rest was left to him and his creativity:

“One thing they did do, which was my intention from the beginning, was they said, “Look, it’s important to us that the movie be PG-13. We want to make sure that we can get this … It’s a Batman movie, and we’re investing so much in it.” And I was like, “Well, in the [Planet of the] Apes movies, I tried to sort of find that balance as well.” They were meant to be sort of… They were obviously spectacle and grand entertainment, but there was a level of intensity. I felt like in that same way, I knew that we could push the boundaries of what you could do in a PG-13 movie and still deliver everything I wanted to do.” — Matt Reeves for Collider

Reeves already revealed that he did everything he wanted to do with his movie and he’s focusing on the future with Pattinson’s Batman. Two sequels are already planned, and two spin-off shows are also in development for HBOMax.

Starring Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Peter Sarsgaard, Andy Serkis, and Colin Farrell, The Batman is set to land in theaters on March 4, 2022.