The Batman breaks from tradition by making Bruce Wayne’s base of operations not stately Wayne Manor, but a grungy, abandoned train station beneath Wayne Tower. As the book explores, that was a purposeful alteration aimed at putting Bruce Wayne in the heart of his city for a change.

The highlight of the Vengeance chapter (apart from the Batsuit) is discussion of Wayne Tower and the Batcave. There is an entire logic as to why the cave looks as it does, and why – as eagle-eyed viewers may have noted – that is a disused train line: Reeves can tell us how and why it is there, and why it is in disuse. Wayne Tower is designed beautifully but underpinned by the concept that this is a man with a disdain for the trappings of wealth.The book details every aspect of the movie, looking at his bat suit, which has always defined him in a way. His car, the famed Batmobile, is also explained in detail, and in the movie Bruce Wayne is the one who builds the ultimate crime fighting car.

The problem with the behind-the-scenes content for most of Christopher Nolan's films is that, while his team does produce decent documentaries, it's often far too light on content and the material that has been produced is so scattered and haphazard that you literally need to adopt a collector's mentality to see all of it. Nowhere was this more evident than The Dark Knight, which had television-exclusive documentaries and featurettes, tons of art and concepts that were never represented in the tie-in books themselves, and had the mark of a production company that was too busy exploiting its fanbase by innumerable books, tie-ins and videos to keep them paying for more content, most of which wasn't all that great or informative in the first place. Reeves confirms that Lee Bermejo’s artwork in graphic novels like Joker and Batman: Damned was a huge source of inspiration for Robert Pattinson’s tactical suit. Costume designer Glyn Dillon also reveals that the Batsuit was inspired by two very practical items - a Russian pressure suit and equestrian vests. The Batsuit may look bulky, but there’s a flexible core underneath all that armor. Batman’s Hidden Weapons What's in "Art of Batman Begins" is great, but there's far too little of it. (Perhaps that's why I was able to buy it for dirt-cheap at a Chapters in Toronto not too long after its release.) There are some interesting anecdotes about the making of the Tumbler, shooting in Iceland and the steps needed to built downtown Gotham, but this material is covered better elsewhere, including the Trilogy book that was released after The Dark Knight Rises. Reeves ( Cloverfield, War for the Planet of the Apes) has steered unapologetically into the disturbing underbelly of Gotham to produce a film that demands attention and provides a punishing showcase for the talents of the movie’s cowled, scowling star Robert Pattinson.

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Pattinson’s new Batsuit is crammed full of wonderful toys, only some of which he actually unleashes during the course of the movie. The Art of The Batman gives us a much better look at the inner workings of the Batsuit and its hidden gadgets, including the spring-loaded grapple gun that Dillon reveals was directly inspired by Robert De Niro’s character in Taxi Driver. THE ART OF THE BATMAN is the official behind-the-scenes illustrated tie-in book to the highly anticipated film The Batman by Matt Reeves ( Cloverfield, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, War for the Planet of the Apes). The Batman stars Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne/The Batman, Zoë Kravitz as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Paul Dano as Edward Nashton/ The Riddler, Colin Farrell as Oswald Cobblepot/The Penguin, Jeffrey Wright as Lieutenant James Gordon, Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth, and John Turturro as Carmine Falcone. Two years of stalking the streets as The Batman, striking fear into the hearts of criminals, has led Bruce Wayne deep into the shadows of Gotham City. As the evidence surrounding a series of crimes begins to lead closer to home and the scale of the perpetrator's plans becomes clear, Batman must forge new relationships, unmask the culprit, and bring justice to the abuse of power and corruption that has long plagued Gotham City. The creatives are not afraid to compare their design decisions to those of Christopher Nolan’s team on the Dark Knight Trilogy. All of this is illustrated with truly gorgeous concept art, matching some of the very best historical examples from the likes of Ralph McQuarrie on the original Star Wars. The drive for realism has led to a genuine sense that the designers have sought to employ real world physics into the hand drawn designs we seen, all heavily annotated with handwritten notes explaining their thinking, and sometimes augmented by pop-out text that gives extra points of trivia or quotes from those involved.

What many noticed in the movie, was the darkness of the film both in terms of story and the way the movie was illuminated. The book presents that with some of the locales in the film, the darkness most evident in the scenes. And what would a Batman movie be without the villains. Two classic nemesis of Batman are presented in the film, the Riddler and Penguin. It is explained in detail as well the motivations for their costumes, and how we view a much different sort of persona than in the comics and past movies. Quotes like that tell me nothing I didn’t already know. Why not ask the artist about what instruction they received from Reeves or what techniques they employed to create the image? No one is getting this book to have the plot explained to them in simple words. Thankfully, that example is the worst offender. The other less-than-interesting commentary has to be the repeated variation on “we knew we needed to ground it in reality” from the crew. I didn’t need to see so many instances of a producer or designer comparing the film to Burton and Nolan, and then saying “but we wanted to make it look believable and functional.” I get it. The first trailer for The Batman made a strong impression thanks to its use of a remixed version of Nirvana’s “Something in the Way,” a tune that shows up in the final film as well. However, while most of the reading in the book is incredibly insightful, especially the essays (Falcone/Penguin and LED Volume being standouts) and interviews (of all of the actors, Kravitz was my favorite, she provided incredibly thoughtful answers), there are some things that made me go “Why even include that?” Matt Reeves: For me, one of the main references for the tower was the Maysles brothers’ documentary Grey Gardens, about a reclusive mother and daughter living alone in an old derelict New York mansion. The idea of getting the decay to show through so that you can see what once was but is no longer—and that sense of the beauty of decay, and how that was reflective of Bruce, of his character was key. He doesn’t care about any of the traditional family history anymore. Bruce Wayne as Kurt CobainThe Art of the Batman is an art book featuring imagery created during the development of The Batman. The book was released on April 19, 2022 and was published by Abrams Books.