Warner Bros. is hoping that “The Batman” is going to usher in a new era of the Caped Crusader with director Matt Reeves and actor Robert Pattinson giving audiences more of a crime thriller take on the DC Comics vigilante, seemingly focusing on Bruce Wayne’s legacy as the “world’s greatest detective.” The trailers have amped up Paul Dano‘s menacing Riddler as a grittier villain than you normally see but it doesn’t sound like the anticipated pic is going to lead to rushed sequels to meet rabid audience demand.
During a video chat with the Los Angeles Times, Reeves said he doesn’t see “The Batman” as chapter one because there aren’t more chapters ready to go, or an overall plan. This comes after previous indications that this would be part one of a new trilogy from Reeves, but these new comments would downplay that angle and that the movie is more of a fresh standalone thing rather than a puzzle piece.
“Here’s the thing, my feeling in doing the film was always that I would never treat it as chapter one. Because chapter one assumes that there are more chapters. So what I wanted to do was to make this movie a satisfying experience so that people could experience a new fresh version of a character that the world has loved for over eighty years,” Reeves said.
Reeves added that audiences will be the ones to decided if a sequel happens or not, “I think that if we succeed on that front, I know that I have a lot of stories I want to tell and then we’ll do chapter two, but not because we didn’t make this one a complete experience. Let’s just see what happens, let’s see the audience watch it. I hope they connect to it and if they do then yes there’s definitely more to do and I will not be napping for too long!”
The filmmaker did tease that he’s open to the idea of tackling a new version of rogue, Mr. Freeze, but it sounds like once the film is released he’ll be more focused on the HBO Max spinoff shows focusing on the Gotham PD and Colin Farrell‘s Penguin.
There are longstanding rumors of popular rogue potentially being revealed and might lead to that character showing up in sequels.
READ MORE: ‘The Penguin’: Colin Farrell Confirmed For ‘Batman’ Spin-Off Series On HBO Max
“The Batman” flies into theaters on March 4.