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Expect the World


The New York Times News Service
 

The New York Times Syndicate
Bringing Batman Back To Basics
By Ian Spelling
(Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)

 "I felt that Batman had the potential, as a concept, as a hero, to have a real kind of gravitas, and I thought that nobody had ever really fully captured that before," says David S. Goyer, who co-wrote the much-anticipated "Batman Begins," opening nationwide on June 15.

"There was no reason why we couldn't have a classic on our hands," Goyer says, speaking by cell telephone from somewhere in Los Angeles as he drives to his office. "Batman is a terribly romantic character, and his origin story harkens back, in a way, to classic literature. There are elements of 'The Phantom of the Opera' (1911) in there, and elements of 'Dracula' (1897).

"I just felt that the character had never really been given the proper emotional weight."

Bat's about to change.

Co-scripted by Goyer and director Christopher Nolan, "Batman Begins" reinvents Warner Bros.' big-screen franchise, which flew off the tracks in the late 1990s with the garish "Batman Forever" (1995) and "Batman & Robin" (1997). Hewing closely to Frank Miller's gritty comic-book miniseries "Batman: Year One" (1988), "Batman Begins" depicts the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne (Linus Roache and Sara Stewart) and the subsequent development of their son, Bruce (Christian Bale).

Essentially the orphan evolves into three distinct characters: the tormented private Bruce Wayne, who never gets over his parents' deaths, the public Bruce Wayne, a bon-vivant playboy industrialist, and the Batman, a black-clad hero who defends Gotham City against the villainous likes of Ra's Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe) and the Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy).

The story also finds time to introduce other key figures, among them Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes), the fetching, dogged assistant district attorney who's fighting a losing battle against Gotham's crime lords, and who also happens to rouse both Bruce's hormones and his sense of duty. Then there's Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), Batman's Q-like gadget master, and Lt. James Gordon (Gary Oldman), the last honest cop in town and, of course, the future commissioner. And then there's Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Caine), loyal butler to both Bruce and Batman.

"I think it's the best script I've ever written," says Goyer, whose previous writing credits range from "Demonic Toys" (1992) to "Dark City" (1998) and the "Blade" trilogy. "It's the best script I've written for two reasons: One, it was the chance of a lifetime -- as a kid I always wanted to make a 'Batman' film. I remember telling my mother that, when I was 15 or something like that. And to tell the origin story, which no one had ever really properly done, was just an incredible opportunity.

"But I also think it's the best script I've ever written because of Chris Nolan and how he pushed me, how we pushed each other," he continues. "It was also just one of those rare opportunities where the final film is even better than I thought it would be.

"That really doesn't happen very often for anyone," the writer says. "The one other film that I've been involved with that I thought was near-perfect was 'Dark City.' There are other movies I've been involved with that I've loved, but 'Dark City' I thought was just perfect, and I think this one is too."

The scenes in "Batman Begins" which Goyer was most excited to see realized on screen capture the dichotomy of the character and the story.

"The first is the big, giant car chase with the Batmobile," he says, "only because we just threw in everything but the kitchen sink. It was a rare situation where we turned it in and Warner Bros. said, 'Make it even bigger.' We thought we'd already written something pretty big. And that was fun, to know that, no matter what we did, it could be realized.

"But the scene that I'm really the most proud of is a scene between Bruce and Alfred," the writer says. "It's a moment in the film where everything is about darkness, and the reason I'm so proud of it is because, when I've seen this scene with audiences, I've looked around and people were crying. I thought, 'If we can pull that off again and again, we will have reinvented Batman.'

"If we can actually get audiences to cry and care about Bruce Wayne, then we will have really done our job."

Anyone familiar with Goyer's career -- which means most sci-fi, horror and fantasy fans -- can recite his every last credit. "Batman Begins" is only one of many projects on the man's overstuffed plate: He's penned a draft of "Ghost Rider," a Marvel Comics adaptation which is now shooting. He's directed the pilot for "Threshold," an upcoming CBS alien-invasion series that he'll executive-produce. He's written and will direct a big-screen version of DC Comics' "The Flash." He's prepping a "Blade" television series, and other works in progress include a remake of "Soylent Green" (1973), a film adaptation of the Ed Brubaker/Jason Lutes graphic novel "The Fall," a ghost story entitled "Alone" and "Y: The Last Man," based on the DC Comics series of the same name.

"I'm very good at time management and at self-discipline," Goyer says with a self-deprecating laugh. "I'm very good at taking a slice of time and saying, 'OK, from 9 to 11 I'm going to work on this and only this, and not take any phone calls. Then from 11 to whenever I'm going to do this ' and etc., etc.

"But I am really going to be put to the test in the next year or so.
   

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