Denis Villeneuve, director of the hotly anticipated Dune adaption, shared his admiration for Batman on an episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast.
Spicy!
Villeneuve has been dipping his toes into the comic-movie turf wars lately, attracting a bit of attention for calling the Marvel Cinematic Universe a series of “cut and paste” jobs that turn viewers into “zombies”, and he doesn’t seem to be a fan of comic books or their adaptations in general. However, he did express admiration for Batman to podcast host Josh Horowitz:
Batman would be probably the only character that I could relate to from what I read, like Arkham Asylum, or a book like that, that I got in contact with when I was an adult. It’s, for me, the character that I could connect to.
However, Villeneuve did shoot down rumors that he had been approached by Warner Brothers about directing a Batman movie.
Hope clouds observation
One of Batman’s greatest appeals as a character is the ample room writers have for interpretation. As a fan, we hunger for great storytellers to get their hands on him so that we can experience some new angle, some new facet. He can be campy as disco or as serious as death. He can be a ninja, detective, or both. He can be a caring partner or a savage loner. A vigilante on the run or a guardian angel. All that matters is the quality of the story. Even while we wait for The Batman to hit theaters, on some level we’re already looking for that next cinematic interpretation, that next infusion of originality.
Denis Villeneuve is drawing a lot of attention for the early looks at (the supposedly impossible to film) Dune. Like A Manchester City fan looking lustily at some hot new striker, we fans are already scouting the next cinematic hotshot. Could Villeneuve be that guy? Let’s see how he handles those sandworms first, but his professed admiration for Batman is a good sign.
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