The Batman was almost as long as Zack Snyder's Justice League, according to a new report regarding the movie's runtime.
Per The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision newsletter, audiences may have had to sit through another lengthy DCEU film, with The Batman originally clocking in at a whopping four hours.
According to THR, Warner Bros. held test screenings to gauge viewers' opinions on a rough cut of the superhero flick and the movie's runtime. Last week, however, we reported that The Batman's final cut weighed in at two hours 55 minutes. Clearly, then, audiences (and potentially Warner Bros' executives) felt that a four-hour Batman film was too long.
If The Batman had retained its initial four-hour runtime, it would have joined Zack Snyder's Justice League – aka The Snyder Cut – in being one of the longest superhero movies of all time. The Snyder Cut clocked in at four hours and two minutes upon release in March 2021, so The Batman wouldn't have been far behind.
Regardless, we don't have much longer to wait for The Batman to finally land in theaters. The next DCEU movie will be released exclusively in cinemas on March 4.
Analysis: could we get a director's cut of The Batman?
Unsurprisingly, THR's report raises questions about the possibility of The Batman receiving a director's cut – The Reeves Cut, if you will, given that The Batman's director is Matt Reeves.
Batman, DC Comics and general movie fans would surely be interested in seeing the content that was removed from The Batman's final cut. After all, The Batman is one of the most eagerly anticipated movies of 2022. If it's as good as we hope it'll be, then, we'd certainly like to immerse ourselves in an extra hour's worth of its story.
If film aficionados want Warner Bros. to release The Reeves Cut, it wouldn't be the first time that this has happened. The Snyder Cut is the obvious example – its release only coming after a fervent, four-year fan campaign following the poor reception that the 2017 theatrical cut received.
DC fans have also called on Warner Bros. to release The Ayer Cut – director David Ayer's original vision for his 2016 Suicide Squad movie. In July 2021, Ayer officially distanced himself from Suicide Squad's theatrical cut. And, despite the attempts of Ayers and fans to persuade Warner Bros. to release The Ayer Cut, the studio has confirmed it won't do so.
So, could The Reeves Cut be released? It's very unlikely. Movie studios regularly conduct test screenings of their upcoming films to determine how audiences react to their character arcs, story threads, visuals (if they're completed) and more. The Batman's rough four-hour cut, then, is likely to have been used as a barometer to see what resonated with fans from a narrative perspective. Scenes that didn't get a good reaction would probably have been removed from the film's final cut.
In short: don't expect The Reeves Cut to be released in theaters. Sure, deleted scenes are sure to be included on the movie's Blu-ray and DVD versions when they're eventually released, but you can file The Reeves Cut's release under 'won't happen'.
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