That is the cave right under the Tower and that is straight out of 70s Batman comics, which many consider to the peak of Batman comics. In the special features, Reeves and his production designer explain that they always found it less convincing that Batman would have to commute into the City from the suburbs to fight crime. That doing so wasted a ton of time and that it would be pretty easy to trace the Batmobile to Wayne Manor once it was outside the City (something Denny O'Neil himself has said). They wanted Bruce to be physically of the City and ready to go out at a moment's notice. Reeves also referenced the Rockefellers, Astors, Roosevelts, etc., old money New York aristocracy (upon which the Waynes were modeled) all of whom had primary residences in NYC, with their suburban mansions actually being summer/vacation homes. All of which was the rationale of the great 70s Batman writer for moving Bruce into an urban Penthouse.
To be fair, I don't really think this version "avoids" the Manor. Rather, they drew from Batman: Earth One, and put the "Manor" in the City and, in particular, at the top of Wayne Tower. It's got the Gothic architecture. It is the ancestral Wayne home for at least a century, which Alfred has preserved as a mausoleum to Thomas and Martha since their deaths. It's got a Bat-filled cavern below it that Bruce turns into his base of operations. If you cut the penthouse (exactly how it is) off of the top of Wayne Tower and relocated it to a wooded estate lot in the burbs, it would be Wayne Manor exactly as we know it. (if you look closely at the shots of Wayne Tower in the film, even the exterior architecture is quite Gothic. The top actually kinda reminds me of a Cathedral).
Yeah, I thought that as well until I started researching Gilded Age penthouses in NYC and frankly, it is surprisingly spot on. Especially if Wayne Tower was supposed to be built in or about the 1920s as Reeves explains on the special features.
Here is another Manhattan penthouse from the era in question:
Granted, with the dust and cobwebs, the Wayne penthouse is a little heightened, but no more than the rest of Reeves' Gotham. Like everything else in this Gotham, it very much fits that decaying 70s New York on steroids aesthetic.
Good catch. The novel seems to suggest that it is the actual Manor that was donated and Thomas, Martha, and Bruce lived there until Bruce was 6. However, I'm not sure how canonical that novel is. The description of when the Manor was donated in it is directly contradictory to the film and Reeves' comments in the making of special features. Reeves seems to state that the Manor was donated in or about the 1920s or 30s when Wayne Tower was built.
Get you on that and that is more than fair. Interestingly, listening to Reeves' commentary, just discovered it actually isn't heightened! They took the design straight from Hearst Castle, one of the great Gilded Age mansions in the US. Hearst, naturally being the guy who inspired Citizen Zane, and who they drew parallels to with this version of Bruce given Kane's own reclusive conduct later in life.
Get you on that and that is more than fair. Interestingly, listening to Reeves' commentary, just discovered it actually isn't heightened! They took the design straight from Hearst Castle, one of the great Gilded Age mansions in the US. Hearst, naturally being the guy who inspired Citizen Zane, and who they drew parallels to with this version of Bruce given Kane's own reclusive conduct later in life.
Here is the real interior of Hearst Castle:
They might've done renovations to the tower or something, but the idea of the orphanage being the same place where Bruce Wayne was born and was raised in for a bit seems too powerful of a parallel for it to be a mistake on the book's part. In which of the special features does Reeves talk about the Manor?
He touches on it in the long making of featurette, the Batman character featurette, as well as his commentary on the film. There is also a bunch of great quotes in the Art book from the production designer.
To be fair I think that on the last part the film contradicted itself, since at the beginning the way they talk about the Maroni drug bust implies it was a fairly recent accomplishment on Mitchell's part. It's too bad we don't have an interview with the author of the book or that no one has asked Matt about it. The thing that strikes me as odd of the prequel book is that there are a lot of stuff that does line up with the film and that only someone that had access to the script and to a lot of concept art could've known when it was written; plus even though novelizations are common, I don't think I remember a single time where a prequel novel was sold for a DC movie or any superhero movie, so it strikes me as odd that out of nowhere WB would decide to make a prequel novel for this film and not ask Matt about it.
The film doesn't contradict itself on that point. The Maroni bust was recent, but it is stated that Falcone was the one who figured out how to exploit the Renewal Corporation when the Waynes died. He indirectly controlled the city officials through grants from Renewal. He was the first among equals of the crime bosses at that time. However, he got greedy and wanted to eliminate the other mob factions like Maroni, with whom he split the pie. Which he did and put in place puppet officials who were even more directly under his thumb. To use an easy example from Star Wars, it is like the Empire before and after Palpatine decided to abolish the Senate.
Then I'm not sure I'd agree with it being a contradiction since Alfred didn't know that.
You mean in the novel? Yes, I would say that Alfred's dialogue in there with Bruce about Falcone isn't consistent with the film. In the movie, as in the comics, Falcone is obviously the biggest kingpin in the City and well known as such for a longtime. That is made clear at several points in the movie. It is just not known how deeply he had corrupted City Hall and the Police Department. Why would Thomas go to Falcone for help if he was just a two-bit gangster? Thomas went to him because he was the big fish.
