The Batman: 5 unlikely movies that inspired the Robert Pattinson reboot

However BatmanTo fit in with the growing trend towards longer runs, Matt Reeves looks to be drawing on more than just the work of Bill Finger and Bob Kane for his DC Comics adaptation. Reeves seems to not only be looking at the originators of The Bat, but also Tim Burton, Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder. Joel Schumacher is the other director that Reeves appears to have been influenced by.

Reeves is now looking for a job. MovieMaker’s interview is to be believed.

While there’s longstanding debate over what the best individual year for movies was, there’s a loose consensus for the 1970s being the best decade. Emerging out a Hollywood which had been overloaded with historical epics and stifled by the censorious Hays Code, “New Hollywood,” as the moment became known, started in the late 1960s and moved into full force in the following decade.

Reeves name checks five ’70s classics in his MovieMaker profile. Here’s a breakdown of each one, and how seeing them before Batman This could improve your viewing experience.

All the President’s Men (1976, Alan J. Pakula)

Warner Bros. Pictures

It is what it is All the President’s Men was focused on one of the decade’s biggest stories: Watergate, the ur-scandal of modern Washington that forced the resignation of President Richard Nixon. Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman star as Bob Woodward, and Carl Bernstein. President’s Men The thriller is about two journalists who work step by step to defeat the most powerful man on earth. It’s not a violent movie, but the threat of violence constantly hangs over the two.

Batman connection: All the President’s Men’s poster tagline was “the most devastating detective story of this century.” It’s an ethos Reeves wants to embody: “this story is, in addition to being almost a horror movie, and a thriller, and an action movie, at its core, it’s also very much a detective story,” he tells MovieMaker.

But there’s more than lip service to Batman’s detective past here. Two characters, Gotham Mayor Don Mitchell Jr. (Rupert Penry-Jones) and District Attorney Gil Colson (Peter Sarsgaard), have names which reference Nixon’s scandal. John Mitchell was Nixon’s Attorney General, and has the distinction of being the the only United States attorney general to serve a prison sentence. Charles Colson was one of Nixon’s confidantes.

“I wanted to do a story in which the corruption of Gotham was one of the most important aspects of the story, because Gotham is a sick place. Bruce is desperate to try and make a change,” Reeves tells MovieMaker.

All the President’s MenYou can stream the video on HBO Max.

Klute (1971, Alan J. Pakula)

It is what it is Klute’s name is somewhat misleading. While Donald Sutherland’s character, detective John Klute, is a lead in the movie, Jane Fonda’s Bree Daniels is the key protagonist. Bree is an NYC sex worker who tries to live as normal as she can, while also venting to her psychiatrist. Klute is on the hunt for a missing man, and the police have found obscene letters in the man’s office addressed to Bree.

Klute and Bree form an insecure partnership that is filled with sexual tension after they meet.

THe Batman connection: MovieMaker hears from Zoe Kravitz Klute “became a Bible for me in terms of tone and the relationship between” between Selina Kyle and Bruce Wayne. “What I love about Donald Sutherland in that movie is he judges her — he judges her and yet he falls in love with her. And I just thought that there was something about that, that related to what I thought could be a Batman-Selina Kyle story.”

KluteAvailable to Rent Amazon, AppleAnd Vudu.

The Godfather Part II and The Godfather Part II, Francis Ford Coppola (1972 and 1974, respectively)

Here’s what they look like: Getting tagged “greatest movies of all time” makes The Godfather Films sound boring, yet they can be deeply moving stories. They tell the story of corruption and immigration through the Corleone clan, which includes patriarch Vito (Marlon Browno), his son Michael, and the rise in organized crime in America.

Batman connection: Reeves seems to be drawing from a smaller part of the sweeping saga: Fredo Corleone, Michael’s older brother, played memorably by John Cazale. Fredo grows resentful of Michael being chosen for leadership despite his place in the pecking order, and it’s this sort of jealousy that Colin Farrell will be bringing to The Penguin.

“There’s a certain amount of brokenness in [Oswald Cobblepot] that, I think, as a reference, not for me performance-wise, but just emotionally, as a reference for Matt — I think Fredo from The Godfather was a bit of a reference,” Farrell tells MovieMaker.

You can rent the Godfather movies on Amazon, AppleAnd Vudu.

Chinatown (1974, Roman Polanski)

It is what it is A classic neonoir, Chinatown Follows detective (picking up an interesting trend? Jake Gittes in 1930s Los Angeles, who is hired to capture pictures of a woman’s supposedly cheating husband. Gittes finds herself drawn into a maze of deceit and corruption that leads to violence, which can have devastating effects on the whole city.

Batman connection: While the movie only gets a passing reference in the MovieMaker profile, the elements resonate all over: a corrupted city in need of a hero, gorgeous dames with dubious motives, people trying to survive and doing whatever’s necessary. Things don’t go so well for Gittes in his hunt for corruption, so it will be interesting to see what fate befalls Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne.

ChinatownYou can stream the movie with a librarycard KanopyAnd Hoopla.