Batman Begins Premiere

On June 12th, Batman Begins had its London premier at the Odeon Leicester Square. Most of the Batman Begins cast were in attendance and I managed to have a chat with them. Producer Charles Roven, first on the carpet, compared the merits of Batman Begins to the other mooted Batman projects floating around Tinseltown: “Once Bryan Singer was announced as the director of Superman Returns, Warner Bros. started looking at ways in which they could re-invigorate the Batman franchise. As they had just done Insomnia with Chris, they asked him about the kind of movie that he'd like to do (he had also been courted as a possible director of Troy) and when Chris talked to David Goyer and came in to talk to Warner Bros. about his idea to take the Batman franchise back to its origins, the studio agreed that the best thing to do was an origin story, and one that would be grounded in reality. So that's really how it came about.” I also asked him about how much freedom Nolan had within the studio production behemoth to tell the story he wanted to tell: “Here's the thing, Chris is an amazing filmmaker, he has all the talent in the world and he's also incredibly responsible and collaborative, so there wasn't any need to restrict him or his process. The thing about this film was that everybody was on the same page, the whole way. It doesn't always work that way, (laughs) especially when working within creative endeavours that have to also generate some business bottom line…the biggest problem we had was just trying to maintain the stamin to do it all…it was a big production.”

The general optimism about the quality of the film was echoed by the rest of the cast. 28 Days Later star Cillian Murphy (who plays the villainous Dr. Johnathan Crane, a.k.a. the Scarecrow) seemed happy to just be involved: “I'm just very proud of the film, so you don't mind doing all this if you're proud of what you've done…besides, Batman 's the best comic book hero…. He's definitely the coolest.”

Tom Wilkinson of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, who plays mobster Carmine Falcone in the film, seemed slightly bemused with all the fuss. He told me he doesn't usually come to “these sorts of things” but his family harassed him into attending. When asked how he liked working with Chris Nolan, he replied “He's brilliant… relaxed, a really wonderful guy. We got on great. I always think that you know (laughs) ‘I really get on well with this guy, I'm gonna be in ALL his movies' and they NEVER hire you again!”

Wilkinson headed inside just as Batman Begins' director Christopher Nolan and his wife, producer Emma Thomas, sauntered up the red carpet smiling and waving. Having just come from the L.A premier a few days earlier, Nolan looked a little worn out: “It was a long shoot and it required a lot more physical stamina than I'm used to. But at the same time we had a great team around us so it made it quite a lot of fun.” I asked him about his plans for the future, if we might see a Batman sequel or his planned follow-ups: Victorian thriller The Prestige or the big business-as-war comic adaptation The Exec ? Nolan wearily admitted that he's still getting out from under the Bat: “I really don't know what's happening yet, making this film has been a pretty overwhelming experience and releasing it's been an overwhelming experience, as you can see from tonight (nods at the crowds) so once I get that past me then I'll figure it out.”

Eventually the man of the hour, Batman himself, Christian Bale wandered over. He was clearly uncomfortable in the glare of the cameras but stopped to chat regardless. And he was under no illusions about all the attention: “This is a great reception and everything but they're applauding Batman (nods his head in the direction of the cheering mob), they're not applauding Christian Bale, that's for sure.” As for the pressures of bringing back ‘the Bat,' he explained “I think the principle thing with this is we're not ‘bringing it back,' we're reinventing it, very respectfully ignoring everything that came before. We're taking it back to what Bob Kane [ Batman's creator] intended.” Bale was itching to escape inside, but a journalist next to me managed to blurt out, “Will Robin be back?” Bale thought for a moment, his face registering annoyance and amusement before breaking into a smile: “I hope not!”