By Though Matt Reeves’ “The Batman” offered a stylised noir-ish take on the character, it also aimed to have a very authentic feel with grounded villains.
The result is characters like The Penguin, Catwoman and The Riddler are able to be included because they’re essentially just plain humans with even their usual colorful attire toned down for the film.
This is a world in which the weirder villains – Clayface, Man-Bat, and Mr. Freeze are off the table because they push things into fantasy/sci-fi territory. Even some Nolan-era Batman villains like Scarecrow or Ra’s Al Ghul are likely a step too far.
Speaking with SFX Magazine about the upcoming sequel, and the greater universe at large within the films, Reeves says fantastical villains are off the table in the next film and any future entries:
“What was important to me was to find a way to take these pop icons, these mythic characters that everybody knows, and translate it so that Gotham feels like a place in our world. We might push to the edge of fantastical, but we would never go into full fantastical. It’s meant to feel quite grounded.
It doesn’t mean that you won’t see characters that people love. That’s exactly what we want to do. Gentleman Ghost is probably pushed a bit too far for us to be able to find a way to do, but there is a fun way to think about how we would take characters that might push over into a bit of the fantastical and find a way to make sense of that.”
Reeves also shared a story outline for the sequel, suggesting it will involve Batman digging into systemic corruption in Gotham.
“We’ve shared [the script] as we’ve been going along with DC, and they’re super excited. It’s going to dig into the epic story about deeper corruption and it goes into places [Bruce Wayne] couldn’t even anticipate in the first one.
The seeds of where this goes are all in the first movie, and it expands in a way that will show you aspects of the character you never got to see. Batman is constantly battling these forces. But those forces can’t be entirely exorcised. So the next movie delves deeper into that.”
This has immediately led to speculation the film will tackle the Court of Owls, a shadowy sect of Gotham’s wealthiest and most influential citizens who use agents known as Talons to carry out assassinations.
In terms of when the film is coming, Reeves says the plan is to shoot next year with the script being finished now. He also confirmed Colin Farrell’s Penguin will be part of the movie.
The upcoming “The Penguin” series serves as a bridging work between the films with Reeves saying the new film is:
“…absolutely connected to where we leave things in the series. There are details that actually connect right into the way the next movie begins, and the way that Oz enters that world as we hand the baton back to Batman, and Batman is on another case.”
Ultimately he says the aim of these stories is to be a meditation on the way Gotham is the brutal place that it is and why.
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