LOS ANGELES—Calling the screenplay “a bold, singular vision,” studio executives asked whether its intimate portrait of a divorced piano teacher could take place in Gotham.
“We don’t want to change your voice,” said one executive. “We just want to know why it isn’t coming out of Batman.”
The writer was assured the film could remain a deeply personal story, provided it left room for the wider piano-teacher cinematic universe. The studio particularly admired the central character’s quiet grief, which executives felt could be communicated just as effectively through a collapsing parking garage.
“The relationship with the daughter stays,” an executive clarified. “Although we’re open to her being a city.”
At press time, the writer had been asked to prepare a version that retained the emotional authenticity of the original while costing approximately $240 million more.
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