OPINION: With The Batman, Matt Reeves Should Get Weird Instead Of Following Christopher Nolan's Lead

Batman is one of the most popular comic book heroes in the world. The first Tim Burton Batman film was one of the first modern mega-blockbusters, and Christopher Nolan's arguably kickstarted the modern age of superhero movies with his super-grounded take on the Dark Knight. Now, Matt Reeves' The Batman is nearly here, and we've been promised another grounded take on the character. With such an aesthetically similar take on the character, it's hard not to feel like ol' Bats is getting stuck in a rut, though, and that Reeves is going to paint himself into the same corner that Nolan did. Grounding Batman doesn't necessarily make him more interesting, but it definitely limits him--there's a whole side of Gotham that Nolan never explored, and right now it doesn't look like Reeves will either.

There's something about Batman that seems to appeal to directors. You rarely hear so-called serious directors--the last people you'd expect to make a Batman flick--making a big deal about picking up a superhero movie, but it keeps happening with Batman; Christopher Nolan, Ben Affleck (for a time), and now Matt Reeves. The question of who is directing the next Batman has become a major piece of news awaited by the fan community. When it comes to the latest film, it's easy to find quotes of Reeves talking about how grounded his movie is, and that's at the core of this. Other heroes fire lasers out of their eyes and hands, they're immortal, they can literally punch time, the concept. Batman is just a regular billionaire--as if there is such a thing--even compared to Tony Stark. Tony can fly into space and make unlimited clean power sources. Batman has a car and a grappling hook.

When it comes to the best-loved storylines in comics, Batman covers an outsized area of that list with stories like The Dark Knight Returns, Batman Year One, The Long Halloween, Court of Owls, and more. He's a favorite of comic legends like Alan Moore and Jim Lee, and many of these all-timer storylines are totally plausible once you can get past the part about the rich guy wearing an animal cape.

While Jon Favreau was kicking off the MCU with Iron Man, Christopher Nolan was unknowingly influencing our idea of what Batman movies should be. We went from Joel Schmacher's ultra-campy Batman films--which arguably had more in common with Adam West's Batman than with Tim Burton's Batman--to Nolan's blue-and-gray version of Gotham, which resembled Chicago and New York more than the neon-infused art deco cityscapes of its predecessors. It was the second of his Batman films, The Dark Knight, that cemented his vision thanks in big part to Heath Ledger's iconic turn as the Joker. This take on Batman and the Joker showed that you could both of them in a plausible, real-world situation without losing their essence. It showed audiences and directors alike that you could make a serious, grounded film while also raking in the bucks that only Batman and Spider-Man are really capable of.

Here's the problem. These movies might be getting a little too grounded.

Batman lives in a big, wild world

Nolan, in just 3 movies, covered most of Batman's "grounded" adversaries, including Ra's Al Ghul, Scarecrow, the Joker, Two-Face, Bane, Talia Al Ghul, and Catwoman. With Reeves' film featuring Catwoman, the Riddler, and the Penguin, it feels like we're getting a sequel to The Dark Knight Rises rather than a brand-new Batman. If you were told that, in the movie, Batman faces gritty, realistic versions of two of his greatest adversaries that will force him to call his own crusade into question as they threaten both him and the city he protects, would you be able to say for sure which version of the character I'm thinking of?

These villains are great, of course. They're timeless for a reason. But they, and the movies in which they feature, show how limited this version of the Caped Crusader can be.

Batman has long dabbled in the worlds of science fiction and horror with his villains. While guys like the Riddler and Joker are usually just scary weirdos, Two-Face, Bane, and Ra's are all a step further away from reality.

Nolan's Ra's Al Ghul is never formally outed as being immortal or having access to Lazarus Pits. His take on Two-Face was the victim of a horrible accident just like his comic-book counterpart, but the movie depicted him as walking around with a ghastly open wound that would become infected. He wouldn't have lasted more than a few days--if not hours--before his wound took him. He wouldn't even have time to start thinking of a gang as he does in the comics. He was intentionally built not to be a long-lived character; more of a revenge tornado than the scarred personification of unchecked anger issues and a dissociative identity disorder. I'll give Nolan Bane, though. Even the most bulked-up human couldn't hope to match the comics, and we're just now in the last year or two getting to the point where a fully CGI man can kind of work on-screen.

And now, we're heading into a version of the Riddler that looks more like a character in David Fincher's Zodiac. The Penguin is interesting just for how thorough Colin Farrell's makeup is, but we're betting he's not going to be sending dynamite penguins after Battinson.

Monsters and Men

These takes on Batman that Nolan and Reeves so proudly call grounded and plausible are leaving a whole cadre of rogues on the table. Imagine a movie where Clayface, a man with no identity, and Mr. Freeze, a man frozen in time, both tragically destroyed by science and the obsession with preserving what they can't. Reeves has expressed interest in what he called a "grounded Mr. Freeze," but what does that even look like? Victor Fries is a sci-fi creation.

While there are plenty of issues with Zack Snyder's Justice League, one of the most exciting things about Snyder's take on Batman was that it placed him firmly in the same world as Superman, Wonder Woman, and Cyborg–an alien, a goddess, and a part-robot. The latter being a tragic sci-fi creation that could've just as easily been a powerful DC villain in another timeline. That Batman could conceivably fight the stranger of his adversaries.

Bruce Timm is the blueprint

And the thing is that there's a great blueprint for this: Batman: The Animated Series. Across 85 episodes, Bruce Timm and Warner Bros. presented us with a Batman who feels as grounded as any of these live-action versions of the character but still allowed room to experiment and even resurrect many of the Caped Crusader's villains. Characters like Mr. Freeze were as much a joke as anything before they went through the House of Timm, coming out as tragic, heartbreaking people that were villains by circumstance rather than scheming. Mr. Freeze, a man who wanted to save his wife but fell victim to corporate greed. Clayface, a washed up actor buried by his addiction. Two-Face, a lawyer with an anger problem, expertly manipulated by the very mobsters he sought to arrest.

So what's going on? Did the dismal critical reception of Batman Forever and Batman & Robin frighten these directors into crossing to the other side of the street to avoid even approaching campiness at all costs? Are they afraid that getting weird will make them look less serious? If so, I'd like to show them Doom Patrol, Peacemaker, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and Spider-Man: No Way Home. Hell, even Gotham was able to portray some of the more ridiculous elements of Batman in a live-action format.

Making Batman grounded doesn't make him better--it limits him. Maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe the end stinger on The Batman sets up a cryogenic accident or an overgrown Gotham. The past seems to already be repeating itself--Barry Keoghan appears briefly in The Batman, credited as "Unseen Arkham Prisoner." All signs seem to point to him being the Joker in the sequel. We don't know that for sure, but it seems to point to another gritty, grounded Batman on the way.