Warner Bros. Pictures boss Toby Emmerich confirmed that a shorter cut of The Batman exists — and test audiences weren’t keen on it.
Emmerich recently discussed the DC film’s 2-hour, 55-minute runtime with Variety. The interview revealed that The Batman director Matt Reeves oversaw two different versions of the film, and the shorter of these was discarded after test audiences preferred the longer cut.
This echoes recent comments by Reeves, who spoke about how test screenings convinced him not to cut Barry Keoghan’s Joker cameo. “I initially tested it without [the Joker cameo]; when I put it back in, the scores for the ending went back up,” recalled Reeves. “And I think it wasn’t just that people enjoyed seeing that character. It changed people’s response to the very ending of the movie, to see that Gotham was still Gotham, and that Batman really didn’t have a choice. He has to keep doing what he’s gonna do.”
This isn’t the first time an alternate cut of the DC film has been mentioned by Reeves. The director dismissed rumors that he was working on an edgier, R-rated version of The Batman. “There isn’t some special cut of this movie where it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, here’s the R rating that you’ve been desperately wanting… In my mind, the movie was always going to be a gritty, edgy, noir, thrilling spectacle that was PG-13… so we didn’t really have to cut anything,” said Reeves.
Sources close to the production previously gave an insight into how Reeves kept The Batman from landing an R-rating. These insiders explained that while the film is “grounded more in reality than recent DC adaptations” and boasts “intense action scenes,” it doesn’t feature “excessive foul language or nudity.” What’s more, they emphasized how the action is confined mostly to “exploding buildings and wrecked cars,” rather than “than merciless stabbings or shooting sprees” — all of which made a PG-13 rating possible.
If the movie’s opening weekend box office performance is anything to go by, The Batman‘s test audience feedback was on the money. The film, which stars Robert Pattinson as the Dark Knight, raked in $134 million at the domestic box office, exceeding pre-release predictions. While this falls short of the openings of previous Bat-flicks The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, it also positions The Batman as the second blockbuster in the pandemic era (after Spider-Man: No Way Home) to earn more than $100 million over its opening weekend.
The Batman is currently in theatres.
Source: Deadline
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