A lot work nonetheless lay forward. Reeves spent a few further months together with his co-writer, Peter Craig (“The City”), mapping out the interwoven crime drama, corruption scandals and metropolis historical past within the film’s center part. He populated his sprawling Gotham with recent variations of allies like Alfred (Serkis) and Gordon (Jeffrey Wright), adversaries just like the Penguin (Colin Farrell) and the Riddler (Paul Dano), and the hero’s cat-burgling love curiosity, Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz).
All of the whereas, Reeves stated, he was pushing himself to seek out new floor that hadn’t been coated within the Batman movies that also dominate the pop-cultural consciousness, notably Burton’s and Nolan’s films.
He apprehensive that at any second Warner Bros. would possibly bitter on his movie, which isn’t related to the broader continuity established in different DC films like “Aquaman,” “Surprise Lady” or the forthcoming “The Flash” (which can characteristic Affleck and Michael Keaton reprising their Batman roles).
“There’s an crucial if you already know that Film 6 is coming and also you’re Film 5,” Reeves stated. “They could possibly be like, ‘Look, we consider on this take, however this doesn’t match our total plan,’ they usually might pull the plug.” (Emmerich stated that Reeves at all times had the complete backing of the studio.)
Then in March 2020, two months into manufacturing and with about 25 p.c of the film accomplished, the pandemic struck. Andrew Jack, the movie’s dialect coach, died from Covid and different crew members turned sick. Reeves was making ready to journey from London to Liverpool for a sequence involving 600 extras when manufacturing was shut down.
“It was a bizarre second — everybody was like, what’s occurring? And no one knew the load of it,” Reeves recalled. When filming resumed that fall, he stated, “we needed to be nimble.” Although Reeves stated that no elements of the film had been considerably reconceived for pandemic-era manufacturing, digital results did assist fill some gaps: “There are locations the place we completely have CG crowds.”