Warner Bros.
All of Matt Reeves ‘ films , with the exception of the David Schwimmer and Gwyneth Paltrow romance The Random Lover , belong (sometimes more, sometimes less) to one type of franchise — from Cloverfield to the remake Let Me In» to the «Planet of the Apes» movies and » The Batman «. Nevertheless, the filmmaker has defined a limit for himself that he does not want to cross. It’s the frontier of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Not enough freedom at Marvel
Matt Reeves told industry magazine Variety , «I have a lot of respect for Kevin Feige and also for the Marvel filmmakers. But to be honest, I just don’t know how I would get through it. There has to be a minimum level of discovery where I have some freedom to find my way. If I were to join something that’s already too set in stone, I think I’d get lost. And I don’t think they would be happy with me either.»
Matt Reeves has a point: The films and series of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are constructed like small pieces of a jigsaw puzzle designed to create a big picture. Individual pieces can certainly differ from one another, but they must always fit together. Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige watches over the coherence, every filmmaker and every filmmaker has to submit to the big vision. When someone brings their own style to bear, like Chloé Zhao recently did in Eternals , it’s only in a controlled environment.
The stylistic differences between the MCU films and series are never extreme (one film is a little funnier, the other series is a little scarier), even with quite clear outliers such as the series » WandaVision «, which was initially staged as an old-fashioned sitcom, sooner or later later steered into the usual direction and nobody can influence the plot or character development against Kevin Feige’s will.
Reeves isn’t the only Marvel denier
That’s why some directors like Matt Reeves don’t even get involved with the MCU, others let off steam within the limits of their niche (e.g. James Gunn with his «Guardians» films) and still others join in until they feel the wall:
Nerd king Edgar Wright left Ant-Man after much preparatory work and Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson left the sequel Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness , but as Kevin Feige told Empire (via Slashfilm ), is said to have had nothing to do with the new film’s significantly creepier coloring, but with other creative differences.
Freedom at DC?
After Warner failed to copy the immensely successful Marvel concept, they decided on the opposite approach: the filmmakers and their respective ideas should be more in the foreground, but the content of the films no longer has to fit together. After “ Joker ”, “The Batman” is now the second film in which the new approach has paid off commercially (in contrast to the cinema flop “ Birds Of Prey ” and the streaming start “ Zack Snyder’s Justice League ”, which also presumably fell short of expectations «).
The rainy and — in two senses — dark detective story «The Batman» is a cinema hit. As Reeves notes in further discussion with Variety , his Batman film is also part of a larger franchise: «The industry has changed dramatically. When you’re making a movie that’s going to be released in theaters, you’re not doing anything that doesn’t belong in a recognizable franchise.” In that sense, Matt Reeves can’t do what he wants in other The Batman movies either. Time will tell if the boundaries of this new «Batman» universe from other films and series offshoots are wide enough for Reeves to feel comfortable there in the future.
«The Batman» is just the beginning: In addition to «The Batman 2» there are other sequels to the DC hit
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