Star Zoë Kravitz says filming The Batman felt more like making an indie movie than a big blockbuster. Kravitz plays Selina Kyle/Catwoman in the upcoming DC Extended Universe film from director Matt Reeves (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes), which features Robert Pattinson in the title role. The Batman is currently scheduled to release in the US on March 4, 2022.
While the initial plan was for Ben Affleck to reprise his DCEU role as Batman in a solo-film that he would also write and direct, Reeves took over the project when Affleck chose to vacate the director's chair, and the actor would eventually leave the film entirely in January, 2019. Reeves pivoted to focus The Batman on a younger iteration of the hero, casting Pattinson as Bruce Wayne and setting the film in his second year of vigilantism. Kravitz's Catwoman is just one of the classic Batman villains appearing in the project, with Paul Dano playing a serial-killing Riddler and Colin Farrell playing the crime lord Penguin.
Despite what must be many moving pieces, Kravitz tells AnOther that it really felt like she was making an indie film while on set. She credits not only her director's sense of vision, but the pandemic-delayed production, which resulted in them taking a full year to wrap on The Batman. That kind of immersion, she says, is incredible:
Sometimes with really big movies, it can feel like you’re just a puppet and part of this big machine. This felt like an independent movie in the way that there was real heart and soul and thought being put into the process and into every scene. It was incredibly collaborative. Matt’s very specific. It took him a year to make this because of Covid. We were in this bubble, really in this world, and it was an incredible experience. To spend a year of your life, and it’s very physically demanding ... I had to be in very specific shape, and there’s a pandemic going on. I’m being zipped into a catsuit every day at 7am, working 12-hour days and then coming home and working out. It was intense.
Elsewhere in the interview, Kravitz discusses how she came to be cast as Selina Kyle, and even though she really wanted the part, she was hesitant to seem too agreeable just to get it. "It was important to give him an idea of what it’s really like to work with me," she says. "To say what I really think and, if we’re on set together, to ask the questions I want to ask. I tried to come at it from the angle where I am showing him what I see and feel about this character. I believe that’s why it happened and I got the role."
While fans shouldn't be expecting to turn up to The Batman and see a Sundance movie, Kravitz comparing it to an indie film is a promising sign. Reeves has already shown he can make a blockbuster that feels character-driven and intimate without sacrificing a grand sense of scope, and it sounds like he's trying to bring that same balance to his DCEU movie. If he managed to create a comfortable, collaborative environment for his talented actors, as Kravitz suggests, then The Batman audiences could be in for a real treat next March.
Source: AnOther
