Matthew George "Matt" Reeves (born April 27, 1966 in Rockville Centre, New York) is an American director, screenwriter, and producer.
He found success with Cloverfield and the critically acclaimed sequels to Rise of the Planet of the Apes that he directed, and has since went on to write and direct the next cinematic iteration of Batman starring Robert Pattinson.
Works he directed:
- The Pallbearer (1996)
- Homicide: Life on the Street (1997, Season 6 episode 8)
- Felicity (1998-2001, several episodes)
- Cloverfield (2008)
- Let Me In (2010)
- Planet of the Apes (reboot/prequel series):
- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
- War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)
- The Batman (2022)
- The Batman Part II (2025)
Other works he's been involved in:
- Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995, co-writer)
- The Yards (2000, co-writer)
- Cloverfield:
- 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016, executive producer)
- The Cloverfield Paradox (2018, executive producer)
- The Passage (2019)
- Tales from the Loop (2020, executive producer)
- The Batman spin-offs
- Arkham (TBA, showrunner)
- Penguin (TBA, showrunner)
- Batman: Caped Crusader (TBA, animated series, co-creator and executive producer alongside Bruce Timm and J. J. Abrams)
Tropes associated with his works:
- Anti-Hero: His films usually feature an imperfect protagonist. Caesar in his Planet of the Apes struggles with a temptation towards evil, Owen in Let Me In fantazies about killing his bullies, the cast of Cloverfield is not the most sympathetic, and his version of Batman amps up the darkness a fair amount.
- Bittersweet Ending: His films usually feature one. With the exception of The Pallbearer which has a Happy Ending, and War for the Planet of the Apes indicates a Happy Ending Override regarding it's prequel's human protagonist in a deleted scene.
- Deconstruction: Cloverfield and The Batman deconstruct various tropes and elements of the Kaiju movie genre and the Batman mythos, respectively.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: His directorial debut was the romantic comedy The Pallbearer, starring David Schwimmer and Gwyneth Paltrow. His subsequent films have been much darker.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: In his Planet of the Apes movies, apes are more sympathetic, but most humans are just fighting to survive. His version of Batman is unusually dark, while his Riddler is a Well-Intentioned Extremist with an understandable Freudian Excuse.
- Hero Antagonist: In Dawn and War for the Planet of the Apes. The Police Officer in Let Me In counts as well.
- Production Posse:
- Starting with Cloverfield, his films have been scored by Michael Giacchino.
- Early in his career he frequently collaborated with J. J. Abrams (most notably with Felicity and Cloverfield).
- He worked with cinematographer Greig Fraser on Let Me In and The Batman. Editor Stan Salfas, who edited Let Me In, would co-edit Reeves's Planet of the Apes films with William Hoy, who would reteam with Reeves on The Batman.
- Kodi Smit-McPhee appeared in both Let Me In and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which also features Felicity star Keri Russell. Andy Serkis, who starred as Caesar in the Apes films, appears in The Batman as Alfred.
- Promoted Fanboy: Has been a fan of Batman as far back as the 1966 TV series. He even studied screenwriting at USC under Jeph Loeb (who wrote the Batman stories The Long Halloween, Dark Victory, and Hush). His panels at DC FanDome in particular have highlighted his intense knowledge of the source material and excitement at the prospect of being able to helm a film adaptation of the character.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: While leaning more on the cynical end, it does establish that all his characters are human, sympathetic, and complex creatures.
- Tragic Villain: He views Koba, the Big Bad of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, as this. This site, unfortunately, does not.
- What Could Have Been:
- Was one of the directors considered to direct Man of Steel before Zack Snyder was hired.
- He was attached to direct a new film adaptation of The Twilight Zone, but exited the project in September 2012 before signing on to direct Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.
- Was set to direct a film adapted from the short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" (the same source material as John Carpenter's They Live!), but the project has since fallen into Development Hell.
