The Batman director Matt Reeves is more at home in Gotham City than the Marvel Cinematic Universe, according to a recent interview where he praised Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, but said that an interconnected world of films simply wasn't his style.

"I have such respect for Kevin Feige and also for the [Marvel] filmmakers," Reeves told Variety. "But to be honest with you, I just don't know how I would make my way through that. There has to be some level of discovery for me, where I have some freedom to find my way. If I have to come into something that’s already set too firmly, then I think I would get lost. And I don’t think they would be happy with me either."

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Reeves has been outspoken about his desire to keep The Batman separate from Warner Bros.' own DC Extended Universe. Originally, the film was a project intended to be written and directed by Ben Affleck, the current Batman actor in DC's interconnected universe. Reeves was chosen to enter the director's chair in his stead, and after Affleck stepped away from the project in 2017, Reeves retooled the script to star a younger Batman who was separate from the grizzled veteran that Affleck had portrayed in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League.

"I felt to do a standalone Batman film for the first time in 10 years, I needed to make sure that Batman was at the center and that we weren't trying to keep all these other planes up in the air," Reeves said in previous interviews. "...When [Ben Affleck] decided he didn't want to be Batman anymore, I said, 'I really want to hold on to this idea that this isn't going to be a part of the DCEU and now we can create a new Batman.' That's kind of how it evolved to this place."

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Despite his qualms with shared universes, Reeves said that he was still willing to film big-budget genre movies -- with the caveat that he could make his personal mark on them without worrying about continuity.

"The industry has changed so dramatically that if you’re going to make a movie that’s going to be in movie theaters, you’re not making anything that isn’t recognizable IP," Reeves explained. "That’s just where the audience has gone. I’m not saying that I’m happy about that. I’m just saying it is what it is."

The Batman opens in theaters March 4.

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Source: Variety