"THE Batman" Matt Reeves x Keishi Otomo "same age" director special conversation complete version [Director's Interview Vol.194]

I definitely didn't want to tell the story of Batman's birth.

Otomo: In order to realize the vision of cutting into the personal side of humans, the setting that "Batman is in his second year" was very effective. This time, Batman is still mentally immature. It's fresh and interesting because it exudes complexity. How did this setting come about?

Reeves: First of all, I didn't want to make it an "origin movie" depicting the birth of Batman. It's been done so many times already. Making a Batman movie means stepping into the history of Batman movies. There have already been great Batman movies, so it's essential to make something that's unique to me, a definitive Batman movie. Well, I'm that type of person, and if I can't make a personal movie, I don't know where to put the camera (laughs).

I definitely don't want to make it an origin story, but I still want to make it a story centered on Batman... That's how the second year setting was born. This time, Batman is still in the early stages of his career and is not yet perfect, so he is a more human character. I thought that by throwing him into an emotional story that would draw an arc, I could depict his "awakening" and "change."

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So they turned to the noir and detective elements that had been present in the original Batman stories by Bob Kane and Bill Finger. They decided to make this a psychological mystery, with Batman investigating the case as a detective, and depict the journey of discovering the corruption and history of Gotham that took his family away as a boy.

By making it the second year, we can portray Batman as still feeling his way around his purpose and methodology, and as Director Otomo said, his mental immaturity. In other words, he is a character with human shortcomings. Like Jekyll and Hyde, Batman is still driven by the shadow/dark side of himself, but he himself does not understand this.

He begins to understand that "revenge" is not necessarily the Arrival he should be sending out, and that he is in fact having an impact on the city that he never intended.

Batman's appearance was inspired by David Lynch.