The DC Fandome trailer for The Batman has no CGI images, according to Westworld star Jeffrey Wright, who plays Gotham Police Commissioner Jim Gordon in the upcoming 2021 film. It’s an impressive feat for a trailer that has been praised for its brilliant style, and it’s a reason to get even more excited for the visual treatment of the full film from director Matt Reeves and cinematographer Greig Fraser.
The Batman was one of the most hotly anticipated films of next year before the trailer dropped, and excitement has exploded in its wake. The movie stars Robert Pattinson as a younger Bruce Wayne in the second year of his crime fighting crusade, with costars Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman, Paul Dano as The Riddler, Colin Farrell as The Penguin, Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth, and Wright as Gordon. The Batman is Reeves’s first directorial outing since 2017’s critically acclaimed sci-fi action blockbuster, War for the Planet of the Apes.
In a recent interview on SiriusXM, Wright discussed The Batman’s grounded style, claiming that the entire trailer is shot footage, with no CGI. “I think if you look at that trailer, if I’m not mistaken, there’s not one CGI image in the entire thing,” Wright said. “That’s all photographed. That’s all stuff that Greig Fraser was lighting, and Matt was directing.” Fraser has worked as the cinematographer for films like Zero Dark Thirty, Rogue One, and Denis Villeneuve’s upcoming Dune film. He was nominated for the Academy Award for best Cinematography for Lion in 2017.
At Fandome, Reeves said that the version of Gotham seen in The Batman would be augmented by CGI to an extent, in order to add the more modern elements of the city’s look and feel. However, he claimed this was in order to make Gotham feel like a unique and realistic American city, something Wright also discussed. “The thing that distinguishes the Batman series from any other, is that he lives in a city that is like New York, or Chicago,” Wright said. “It’s an American metropolis…we have an opportunity to use all the opportunities of that genre to explore things in an American city through the lens of crime and corruption, that are really grounded, and relevant, and interesting.”
Though excessive use of spectacle-focused CGI has become a common and highly-criticized facet of sci-fi and action movies over the past fifteen years, a more recent push back toward practical effects has seen success, even in big budget films like Mad Max: Fury Road. Though CGI was essential to create the ape characters in Reeves’s Planet of the Apes films, they remained grounded, opting for emotion over bombast. Superhero movies will often be forced to rely on CGI given the feats their characters perform, but Batman is a character who manages to save the day without any superpowers. In which case, an approach that is less reliant on CGI is sure to fit well with the distinct, memorable version of Bruce Wayne’s world Reeves is hoping to bring to The Batman.
Source: SiriusXM
