The Batman in the DCU: A Thread.

[SwordOfMorning]

‘Obviously everyone will immediately cave to brazen, fiscal cynicism’ is the easiest and laziest way for poser wannabe Industry Insiders to come off like cool super smart big boys who Know How The Game Is Played.

 

[Zarex]

If I were Gunn I would be definitely be having discussions about this possibility. Would Reeves and Pattinson be okay with Bats having a rooftop meeting with Clark to tell him to stay out of Gotham? How about popping into JLI headquarters to one punch Guy, and again, tell them to stay the hell out of Gotham?

Being a full scale member of JLI or taking part in a superhero mash up film may not fly, but how about a cameo or two? There should be a way let the DCU use a very successful version of the company’s most popular character without compromising Reeves’ The Batman sequels.

 

[Invader Joker]

The only way it happens is if Matt for whatever reason has decided to give up on the "realism" angle that he explicitly went for with his Batman and wants to evolve the franchise in a more fantastical way evolving this Batman into a more comic-booky one. Which I find hard to believe he'd do, but then again he's taken so long with the script so who knows what may have happened within that process, and he has changed his mind drastically on things before with having a falling out with Terrence Winter just 3 months after Gotham PD got announced and moving the Arkham show to the DCU before it fell apart.

I keep going back to this quote as the reason it won't happen, because James approach is the entire opposite of what Reeves described here:
"You mean if it could? Is that what you're saying? I mean, if something like that did happen, because I was very careful about ... To me, what I try to do is take ... I did this in the Apes films too, and even Cloverfield , this idea of taking the one fantastical element and then have everything around it, so it'll be as grounded as possible, so that it could feel ... I want it to feel emotionally real and to make everything feel very believable. In this movie, even further I think than what I did in those films, I tried to find the practical, believable version. If suddenly in the Batman world, you discovered that there was an alien that was Superman, there'd be a lot of shock. I mean, people would have to say, oh my God, and maybe that would be the one fantastical element.
‘The Batman’s Matt Reeves on Whether Superman Could Appear in a Sequel
But to be honest with you, that is not the intention at this point, to figure out how to make that come. Look, we should be so lucky that this is a world that people embrace and that they say, oh my God, we want to see what would happen when those things collide. I think if that challenge ever presents itself, it would be an exciting one to explore, but I'd have to try and do it through this lens. You know what I mean? And that is absolutely right, that at the moment, to me, this world is the place that I want to focus.”


But then again within that quote there's the: "Look, we should be so lucky that this is a world that people embrace and that they say, oh my God, we want to see what would happen when those things collide. I think if that challenge ever presents itself, it would be an exciting one to explore" and if there's anything that the last few weeks of constant viral mashups of the two has taught us is that people do, for one reason or another, want that.

 

[Dr.]

I am honestly kinda confused as to why people equate fantastical elements to "campiness and silliness". Some of the darkest Batman stories have been extremely fantastical.

I keep saying that tone has very very little to do with why these two universes are not compatible at all.

“Tone” or “tonal compatibility” are slippery and ambiguous concepts. Moreover, and as you mentioned, they’re sometimes conflated with the realism vs. fantasy issue.

By way of anchoring these concepts, I would offer an extreme hypothetical that (I think) most would agree with: Pairing Pattinson’s Batman with Frank Gorshin’s Ridder (from the Adam West TV series) would be a bad idea. Why? Well, they’re from different genres, different approaches to the characters and with different creative goals for the respective movies. One is a serious serial-killer mystery, the other a fun/campy adventure. Now as a shorthand, I’m fine with calling this difference and incompatibility a matter of “tone.” But if there’s a better word, I’m happy to use that instead.

So… to the thread topic: Would Corenswet’s Superman be compatible with Pattinson’s Batman? Obviously, we’d need to see Gunn’s Superman to make a proper assessment. But if Gunn’s approach is close/adjacent to the Donner/Reeve interpretation, my answer would be no. The “tones” [insert preferred term] would be too discordant. And forcing each into the other’s genre context (or some middle ground) would be a disservice to both.

 

[HydraSith12]

The best thing Pattinson Batman can do is move away from James Gunn and be his own Universe the truth is i like the idea of seeing a young Batman and seeing him become the perfect Batman i prefer to see the Batfamily in Matt Reeves Batverse than in the DCU Matt Reeves Batman will be realistic and dark the best Batman stories are the ones that are realistic and dark i hope Pattinson Batman has more movies i would like to see him with a young Grayson and Barbara Gordon

 

[Chris B]

I kind of like an idea I saw on Reddit recently were the Reeves-verse can be treated as basically an Earth-2.

If Gunn ever wanted to do a Crisis On Infinite Earths adaptation at some point, they could revisit it and bring back Reeves to develop his own takes on Superman, Wonder Woman, etc.