Andy Serkis Would 'For Sure' Join Matt Reeves' Batman Movie

Andy Serkis is "for sure" interested in joining Matt Reeves' DC movie The Batman. The motion-capture actor behind Gollum in The Lord of the Rings films and Caesar in the Planet of the Apes reboot trilogy is far from a stranger to comic book fare, either. Years before he played the maniacal arms dealer Ulysses Klaue in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Serkis portrayed the booze-loving Captain Haddock in Steven Spielberg's mo-cap The Adventures of Tintin comics adaptation. Serkis may even reprise the role in a few years, should Spielberg's prediction that Tintin 2 will happen by 2021 come to pass.

With Caesar and Klaue now six feet under and Serkis' days playing Supreme Leader Snoke in the Star Wars movies (presumably) behind him, the actor could be on the hunt for the next big franchise to hang his hat on. The Batman is one possibility, seeing as Serkis isn't part of the DC film universe just yet and has worked with Reeves on a pair of acclaimed Apes sequels already.

Up next for Serkis is Mowgli, a mo-cap adaptation of The Jungle Book that he directed and costars in as Baloo the bear. Warner Bros. debuted the first Mowgli footage back at CinemaCon in April and Serkis has since promised that the Mowgli trailer is right around the corner. JoBlo interviewed him as part of the marketing push for the film and, naturally, the subject of whether Serkis has any interest in re-collaborating with Reeves on The Batman came up:

"Oh, for sure! I mean, I'd go to the edge of the created universe with Matt [Reeves]. I mean, he's the most brilliant director. I would work with anything with him again, y'know, I mean, I absolutely adore him and we're very good friends, close friends, and I think he's an extraordinary director so for sure."

Reeves responded with similar enthusiasm, back when a Twitter user asked him if there could be a place for Serkis in The Batman. The filmmaker even compared Serkis as Caesar to Bruce Wayne on multiple occasions while he promoted War for the Planet of the Apes last summer. Of course, Serkis could just as easily play a regular human in Reeves' DC film as he could one of the many fantastical rogues of the Batman universe by way of (what else?) motion-capture performance. He's not locked down to too many developing projects at the moment either, so there shouldn't be any scheduling conflicts that would prevent him from joining The Batman's cast.

As for when The Batman will start filming, well, that's been the big question for awhile. Reeves confirmed a month back that pre-production on The Batman is coming along nicely, but the film doesn't have a tentative production start date yet. For that matter, it remains unclear if Ben Affleck will be playing Batman in the movie or passing the mantle on to someone else. Nevertheless, Serkis would be a welcome addition to the film, based on the blockbuster magic that he and Reeves have made together in the past.