Warner Bros. invests in Matt Reeves with an overall first-look deal

After unceremoniously gutting Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah’s Batgirl, its animation department, and putting Big Bird’s head on a pike outside the company headquarters, Warner Bros. is officially putting all of their eggs into Matt Reeves’ basket, with an overall first-look deal now in place with the filmmaker.

The deal hails from Warner Bros Pictures Group Co-Chairs/CEOs Michael De Luca and Pamela Abdy, marking the duo’s first since they were hired by Warner Bros. Discovery chief David Zaslav to oversee the film division.

“Someone like Matt, we’ll buy for him whatever he wants to do,” De Luca tells Deadline. “We’re making an investment for whatever Matt feels a pull toward, in the Batman universe and otherwise. He has an open invitation to go wherever his interests take him. We’ll lean into whatever Matt wants to do. In terms of the writer/directors out there working in this very elevated genre space, with everything Matt’s done, from Let Me In to the Apes trilogy to The Batman, he’s in a class by himself.”

It’s not that the rest of y’all suck, but the guy who made Cloverfield should absolutely be able to do whatever he wants with all the money Warner Bros. will be saving by axing all these other projects and deleting children’s programming to avoid paying residuals. It’s what he deserves, she said sarcastically.

The first batch of Reeves’ projects will consist of The Batman sequel. The studio confirms Pattinson’s return to the role of Gotham’s hero, with Mattson Tomlin co-writing the film’s script with Reeves. On the television side, Reeves will work on the Colin Farrell-led Penguin spin-off series. One Reeves project will no longer have a home at Warner Bros., and to no one’s surprise, it’s an animated series: Batman: Caped Crusader. Still, Zaslav will still have plenty of Batman-related projects to keep him warm at night.