Clayface: Watkins builds a Gotham that dominates the people
Director James Watkins told IndieWire he never felt pressure to set up future DC films while introducing this Gotham. With production designer James Price, he chased an overbearing city that dominates the people in it: slightly retro, drawn from New York photography of the 1970s through the 1990s, copied in the light, the neons, and what he called the slightly dirty poetry of it.
Watkins said there were no mandates about what Gotham had to be. They presented the version the story needed and found a supportive atmosphere at DC Studios under a filmmaker-driven approach.
His larger point is a directing warning dressed as franchise talk: if you make the movie algorithmically, people can smell it. It has to come from a point of view, a character, and a story you are actually chasing.
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We have not sat with James Watkins yet. Go deeper with directors who talk about building a world that serves one story instead of a slate.
Headline inspired by reporting at IndieWire (Christian Zilko's interview with James Watkins). Full article remains on their site; this page is our craft lens and episode guide. Read the source at IndieWire ↗