‘The Batman’ Shuts Down
There are not many high-profile movies left – Matt Reeves’ The Batman is the latest one to halt production.
WB’s latest incarnation of the caped crusader is halting principal photography for two weeks in the midst of the coronavirus spread, to try to prevent more people from getting infected, and also to protect its crew. This comes on the heels of Sony shutting down production on The Man From Toronto and was followed by Blumhouse shutting down a secret project called Vengeance which was set to be B.J. Novak’s directorial debut.
It seems like Hollywood is finally taking this thing seriously, and most studios are putting their projects on hiatus to try to protect everyone from the coronavirus spread. I understand that all of these moves will cost them millions of dollars every day they are shut down, but it is the right thing to do, especially for the films that are shooting in Europe, which has now become the main focus of the pandemic.
I do not believe that The Batman will be delayed if in two weeks they are able to restart principal photography – as I have been pointing out, I believe these high profile projects are still being worked on, especially in the visual effects and sound design departments, which are usually the most time-consuming parts of the projects.
This may also be applied to Sony’s The Man From Toronto, which hadn’t started shooting but was getting ready to, and they may be able to start creating digital environments for the biggest action setpieces of the movie – actually, they probably have been working on that for several weeks already.
However, there are still a couple of projects that are still in production. WB’s The Matrix 4 is currently shooting in a highly protected sound stage in Berlin and is planning to keep it that way. Also from WB, Will Smith’s King Richard is still shooting in LA and probably will continue to do so.
Finally, Fantastic Beasts 3 is warming up to start shooting on Monday in London, but with the current environment and The Batman shutting down in that same country, I believe it is only a matter of hours before we hear that it has been delayed. However, for all we know, they may be shooting in a sound stage for a couple of weeks with very limited crew and the highest sanitary protections in place, so let’s all hope everything goes well.
The Batman is being directed by Matt Reeves from a script written by himself and Mattson Tomlin. It stars Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne, with Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman, Paul Dano as The Riddler, Colin Farrell as The Penguin, Jeffrey Wright as Jim Gordon, Jon Turturro as Carmine Falcone and Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth, among others.
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
