Matt Reeves on Testing The Batman Before He Was Done Editing and What He Learned

With The Batman opening in movie theaters on March 4, I recently had the chance to speak with director Matt Reeves about making his hugely anticipated DC movie. During the interview, Reeves talked about test screening the movie before he was done editing, which included showing an even longer version to those early audiences. But while he was nervous going in, he soon learned that the first audience to see the film loved the detective story and it was their favorite part of the film. Here’s some of what he said: “The first version of this movie that I screened; the movie has a very ambitious, complex narrative. So, by the time we got to a place where we had to start testing, I was not all the way through the cut of the movie. There was so much of the movie yet to be touched and it was really long. I mean, not to say that the movie doesn't have length now, but it was longer than what I intended. I was terrified because I thought, oh my gosh, we're showing this, before I'm ready, to an audien