Hollywood is Matt Reeves‘ playground at the moment. The notion of making art out of the ‘Planet Of The Apes‘ movies might’ve seemed silly at one point, but the filmmaker surprised everybody with his intense “Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes,” which was followed by this year’s beautifully bleak “War For The Planet Of The Apes.” It didn’t take long for DC Films to come knocking, signing up Reeves for “The Batman,” and letting him scrap the script by Ben Affleck and Geoff Johns and develop his own, potentially trilogy-starting vision. Now, another player wants a piece of the director.
Following Disney‘s buyout of Fox, Netflix has managed to snare Reeves away from the latter, inking him to a first look deal through his 6th & Idaho production shingle. Basically, it means that Netflix will get first dibs on any project that Reeves wants to produce and direct. I’d imagine they won’t say no to much considering the billions of dollars they’re ready to spend on original content, and the fact that Reeves can further spur their blockbuster war against Hollywood that was started rather infamously with “Bright.”
For now, Reeves is apparently still slated to do “The Batman” next, though there’s no release date or even a star in place at the moment. Given that DC Films is still getting settled with a new boss, I would not be surprised if Reeves knocks out something for Netflix, even it’s something smaller scaled like “Let Me In.”
The other curious element to this story is how Disney and Fox managed to let Reeves slip away; he seems like a filmmaker they’d want to have comfortably under their roof (can you imagine a Matt Reeves directed “Star Wars” movie?). I wonder if there’s more to the story there…. [Deadline]