At first glance, it's not clear that Matt Reeves has any secret identity like Batman. The 55-year-old filmmaker is a what-you-see-is-what-you-get guy, but Reeves is now the guardian of Batman's formidable cinematic legacy
Central to the mythology of Batman is the idea of the secret identity: Beneath his fearsome mask, he is really Bruce Wayne, the billionaire scion of grimy Gotham City, and beneath that, he is still the traumatized child who saw his parents murdered in front of him.
At first glance, it’s not clear that Matt Reeves has any secret identity. The 55-year-old filmmaker is a what-you-see-is-what-you-get guy; with his slicked-back hair, neatly trimmed mustache and affable manner, he’s like a friendly mirror image of Batman’s hard-nosed police ally, James Gordon, if Gordon traded his cigarettes for Sweetgreen salads.
REEVES WAS NOT YET PART of the Batman conversation in late 2016, when Warner Bros. was still committed to making a new movie starring Affleck as an older, more seasoned version of the character introduced in “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.” Affleck, a screenwriter on this project, initially planned to direct it and then opted not to, setting off a search for a new director.
Then in March 2020, two months into production and with about 25% of the movie completed, the pandemic struck. Andrew Jack, the film’s dialect coach, died from COVID and other crew members became sick. Reeves was preparing to travel from London to Liverpool for a sequence involving 600 extras when production was shut down.
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