A whole lot has happened at DC FanDome, but to round everything up, Matt Reeves made an appearance and gave some new details for the upcoming Batman film. But news related ‘The Batman’ wasn’t just during the film’s allotted panel, as producer Walter Hamada spoke earlier in the day about the upcoming film during the DC Multiverse panel.
“What the multiverse allows you to do is sort of lean into this idea of you can tell just great stories and you don’t have to really be as focused on it, and it has to fit within a singular continuity–on one Earth. We have the Gal [Gadot] and Jason [Momoa] and Ezra [Miller] version of the Justice League, and we can continue telling those stories. While on a separate Earth, we don’t have to worry about the continuity. We can have a more grounded real year two Batman and build out that world, and not really worry about continuity story elements. It’s really kind of the best of both worlds and allows us to take advantage of everything that’s great about what we’ve done, and really allow us to sort of expand moving forward. And we’re trying to keep it as simple as that, like there is that one Earth–the greater Earth–of this existing Justice League, and then the beginnings of another Earth that is sort of happening in its early stages of year two Batman.”
So despite a push for more interconnection between the films, it seems that this film universe will be taking place on Earth 2 and separate from the existing DC films we have seen in the past few years. That quote, also mentioned that the story will focus on a Year Two Batman, which could mean that it is still early in Batman’s career, but not exactly an origin story.
Back to the panel, Reeves was asked about the cast and gave a couple of teases at the versions of the characters we have heard about will be at. Riddler will be a new version that has not been seen before. Both Penguin and Catwoman will be shown prior to them becoming their iconic versions of the characters.
The batsuit will be very practical and is described as an early suit that will not be a polished version found later in Batman’s career. Liverpool will be the stand-in for Gotham City, but will have elements added in to make it its own thing. ‘Batman: Ego’ was a story that will influence the film. ‘Chinatown’ is a film that also influences the film.
Reeves also discussed the HBO Max series briefly and dives into the corruption within Gotham City. The series will go back to Year One as Batman first appears and shows the police’s reactions to Batman appearing for the first time.
Before things wrapped up, Reeves debuted a trailer from the film despite the film having to stop filming due to the global pandemic. So enjoy the first look at ‘The Batman’.