Fans of Matt Reeves’ The Batman can rejoice that the filmmaker’s follow-up, The Batman 2, has escaped Warner Bros. Discovery’s recent controversial cancelations of Batgirl and several other DC projects at various stages of development. Warner Bros. Discovery struck a multi-year deal with Matt Reeves, securing the future of The Batman films. This includes a Penguin spinoff show for Colin Farrell. The studio has also announced that Robert Pattinson will return to reprise his lead role as Batman, guaranteeing fans at least a little more screen time of Bruce Wayne without the cowl. Also announced is Reeves’ intention to pen the script again with fellow The Batman screenwriter Mattson Tomlin.
Still, there are many players from the impressive cast of The Batman whose return is yet to be announced, among them; Zoë Kravitz, Jeffrey Wright, Colin Farrell, Paul Dano, Andy Serkis, Peter Sarsgaard, and Barry Keoghan. Then there are the players from the equally impressive crew of The Batman that we are likewise still in the dark about.
Most notably absent from recent Warner Bros. announcements on The Batman 2 is whether Reeves will reunite with cinematographer Greig Fraser, whose collaboration on The Batman resulted in the Dark Knight’s visually darkest film yet, let alone one of the visually darkest commercial successes Hollywood has ever produced. While Fraser’s low-key lighting on The Batman was applauded by many who compared the look to that of film noirs and darker Batman comics, it also drew frustration from a minority of viewers who could not make out enough detail in the frame, even in darkened cinemas. God help any HBO Max viewers attempting to stream The Batman during the day.
Will Greig Fraser Return for The Batman 2?
Warner Bros. Pictures
So will Fraser join Reeves in bringing moviegoers everywhere back to a Gotham City dimmer than David Fincher’s rain-drenched Los Angeles in Seven? It appears likely but not certain since Fraser, having gained traction for his work back in 2016 on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, has kept busy with some of Hollywood’s hottest Covid-era franchises from The Mandalorian to his Oscar-winning work on Dune; the follow-up to which Fraser is currently filming with Denis Villeneuve, Dune: Part Two. This should free him up by the time Reeves and Tomlin can realistically deliver their finished script for The Batman 2.
Fraser’s recent work demonstrates an eagerness to return to immersive worlds with successful collaborators. So while it is unlikely that Fraser would miss out on the opportunity to leave audiences everywhere squinting up at the Caped Crusader’s next chapter if Denis Villeneuve makes good on his stated desire to direct a third Dune film based on Frank Herbert’s 1969 sequel to his original novel, Dune Messiah, it seems more likely that Fraser would choose the French-Canadian director over Reeves. Even if Fraser were to be replaced, his low lighting from The Batman would most likely be replicated, if not turned down even more (somehow), as the trend of Batman getting darker and darker is much larger than just Reeves and Fraser.
Over the decades, film and television adaptations of Batman have become progressively darker both thematically and visually; the latter of which can be seen from the director/cinematographer collaborations of William Dozier/Howard Schwartz Batman television series of the 1960s to Tim Burton/Roger Pratt films in the late 1980s/early 1990s to the acclaimed Christopher Nolan/Wally Pfister film trilogy of the oughts and 2010s and, finally, to the Matt Reeves/Greig Fraser film released earlier this year.
Let’s look at how the cinematography in Batman film and television adaptations got progressively darker over the decades.
Dozier and Schwartz’s Batman TV Series
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
“Holy Smog, Batman!” The William Dozier-created television series Batman, which ran from 1966 to 1968, made no attempt to conceal the bright Los Angeles sunshine, sharing more in common visually with Beach Boys album covers than the Gotham City of the Batman comic books. Cinematographer Howard Schwartz shot a whopping 58 episodes for the classic Batman show. The bulk of the series.
Burton and Pratt’s Batman
Tim Burton and Roger Pratt clouded the large Pinewood studio sets and dark street locations of Southern England with fog machines in their 1989 film Batman. It resulted in a Gotham whose visual difference to the sunny California locations from the Dozier television series twenty years earlier was literally night and day.
However, Roger Pratt was replaced by Stefan Czapsky for the 1992 sequel Batman Returns.
Nolan and Pfister’s The Dark Knight
Christopher Nolan and Wally Pfister ditched Burton’s fog machines, creating a naturalistically dark sequence with their high-speed tunnel chase on the night streets of Chicago in their 2008 film, The Dark Knight. The film notably features Heath Ledger’s Joker pulling out a bazooka from his bag of tricks.
Reeves and Fraser’s The Batman
Somehow, Matt Reeves and Greig Fraser managed to go a shade darker than Nolan and Pfister’s naturalistic Chicago tunnel chase with a Batmobile chase so dark that many shots appeared flipped in rain-splattered rearview mirrors, plunging audiences into a visual labyrinth of rainstorms and explosions.
So even if Fraser does not return for The Batman 2, it seems unlikely that Reeves will turn up the lights on the sequel to the only superhero film that makes cinematographer Gordon Willis’ work on The Godfather look like a sitcom.
