'The Batman' Director Matt Reeves To Create A Batverse Outside Of The DCEU On HBO MAX.
From the looks of things, director Matt Reeves is pulling the same move James Gunn did with The Suicide Squad, creating a series of shows with HBO Max. While Gunn only spun off Peacemaker into the DCEU, Reeves' plans seem a bit bolder.
The Batman director is planning to create his own 'verse outside of the trappings of the DCEU canon using the characters from his upcoming film, only prequel-ized. First up on the slate is a crime drama about the Gotham City Police Department, a project Reeves announced back in 2020, which sounds like Gotham, only this time we hope it will be good.
The second show will focus on Colin Farrell's Oswald Cobblepot a.k.a The Penguin and his rise to prominence in the Gotham underworld (another storyline from Gotham which should have been as good as advertised). According to Reeves, his passion for the characters comes from the expansive world the Batman narrative brings to the table. He laid out his play to Entertainment Weekly by saying,
"What I really wanted this movie to do is create a Batverse. You don't do a story and go, 'This is Chapter 1' because you might not get to do Chapter 2. So, the story had to stand on its own. But the thing about it is that the Bat world is so rich with character that as you're starting to come to an end, you can already start thinking about the next thing. Because the idea, of course, is that Gotham's story never ends."
"I was thrilled by that. I said [to HBO Max], 'To be honest with you, the thing that was going to be the seeds of what I thought the next story could be in terms of the Penguin is that I saw there being this kind of 'American dream in Gotham' sort of story, almost like Scarface; the rise of this character who we all know will achieve mythic status.' He is underestimated and he's like a time bomb... They were like, 'Oh my God, we're in!' And that was really exciting because, by that point, Colin had already given life to this character."
After the amazing run of Peacemaker on HBO Max, the concept of telling a smaller character's story is a welcome change to cramming a rushed narrative into a two-hour film. The streaming realm helps the characters breathe and get more in-depth without compromising good storytelling because of a time restraint.
The Batman is set to hit theaters on March 4th.
