The Batman Director Matt Reeves to Write Brand new Script

We recently wrote about the exciting news that Christopher Nolan is restoring his entire Dark Knight trilogy in 4k. Nolan’s version of Batman changed superhero movies completely, with a very ambitious director taking a comic book character and the world he inhabits seriously. The results speak for themselves; the Dark Knight trilogy was a commercial and critical smash, a definitive take on the mythology of one of the most popular superheroes of all time.

This might explain why fans are so eager, and nervous, about Matt Reeves The Batman, the first stand-alone Batman film since Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises bowed in 2012. First Ben Affleck decided he couldn't write, director and star in The Batman, so he ceded the director's chair to the rising star Matt Reeves, whose War for the Planet of the Apes, already boasting rave reviews, opens this weekend. With Reeves at the helm, there was still the question about what direction the film would take, as Affleck had already worked on a script with DC Films co-head Geoff Johns. Reeves has already talked about his desire to make a Hitchcockian, noir Batman, a fitting formula for the superhero without any super powers, but one who is a hell of a detective. 

Now Reeves has said that he's going to be starting from scratch on a brand new script, which makes sense if he's committed to making The Batman a detective film. Reeves appeared on Josh Horowitz’s Happy Sad Confused podcast recently and let it be known that he is, indeed, starting over:

“No, it’s a new story. It’s just starting again. I’m excited about it. I think it’s going to be really cool.”

This means that the main villain from The Batman script that Affleck and Johns had written, Joe Manganiello's Deathstroke, is possibly no longer happening. We won't get any solid information until Reeves is done with his War for the Planet of the Apes press tour and digs into The Batman in earnest. Then again, with Comic-Con next week, you never do know what news will break, and there's few bigger draws at the con than Gotham's Dark Knight.