With The Batman opening in movie theaters on March 4, I recently had the chance to speak with director Matt Reeves about making his hugely anticipated DC movie. During the interview, Reeves talked about test screening the movie before he was done editing, which included showing an even longer version to those early audiences. But while he was nervous going in, he soon learned that the first audience to see the film loved the detective story and it was their favorite part of the film. Here’s some of what he said:
“The first version of this movie that I screened; the movie has a very ambitious, complex narrative. So, by the time we got to a place where we had to start testing, I was not all the way through the cut of the movie. There was so much of the movie yet to be touched and it was really long. I mean, not to say that the movie doesn't have length now, but it was longer than what I intended. I was terrified because I thought, oh my gosh, we're showing this, before I'm ready, to an audience and in terms of a Batman movie, it's a very complex detective story narrative. Are they going to be able to follow anything?
What I found actually, which was amazing, was how much they loved that aspect. That was the biggest relief. I was thinking, okay, why did I do this? Why did I decide to make this kind of story? And what the first test screening told me was the audience wanted this, that we had the Batmobile chases, we had all the things. You can't make a Batman movie without giving the baseline things that people want from a Batman movie. But I knew we were challenging the audience in this side of world's greatest detective side, because it was going to be a very complex narrative and it turned out they love that part of it. It was one of the things that tested best. So that part was a great thing to learn, which was that, actually, the audience would be excited about this version of the movie and that only continued to get better as we continued to test.”
From there Reeves talked about how after that first screening, he continued to tweak the film in the editing room, and how the test screening audiences didn’t know they were seeing The Batman until they were seated.
“I finally just made my way, bit by bit through the cut and you make tiny adjustments to make sure that little things that maybe are not clear enough are clearer, but the testing process kind of validated that this was a direction that an audience would be excited about. For me, what was thrilling was they didn't know what they were seeing. So, they would come to a screening and then suddenly they realized they were seeing a Batman movie, and it showed how much love there is for Batman, which was so exciting for me. Because of course, I've loved this since I was a kid and to be in an audience and have that big screen experience after we're all been away from it for so long and to see people cheer and to see people get excited and then to see them get wrapped up. I mean, there'd be moments where there was just utter silence and you were like, okay, people love Batman and they're into this, and that was exciting. That to me was the best part of the testing.”
Rad the full story on Collider here: collider.com
The Batman stars Robert Pattinson (Bruce Wayne/Batman), Zoë Kravitz as Selina Kyle, Paul Dano (Riddler), Jeffrey Wright (James Gordon), Colin Farrell (Oswald Cobblepot / The Penguin), John Turturro (Carmine Falcone), Peter Sarsgaard as Gotham D.A. Gil Colson, Jayme Lawson as mayoral candidate Bella Reál, and Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth.
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