DAVID GOYER: Well, I remember the very first discussion I had with Chris. We were talking about that but at that point it hadn’t even been decided that we were going to do an origin story yet. I mean, this was just the very first discussion but very quickly over the course of 10-15 minutes we decided we had to tell an origin story. And I felt very strongly that we should use characters that hadn’t been depicted in the films before. Fortunately, and I was familiar with the sort of rogues gallery of Batman’s foes, fortunately in the case of Scarecrow and Ra’s Al Ghul that they were two really great villains that hadn’t been used. After that, we were kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel, whether it was Killer Moth or some of these other crazy characters. They’d been played with in the animated shows, but I just happen to think Ra’s Al Ghul is unique as a “Batman” villain because his goals, you know, although they are certainly perverted somewhat, he’s more realistic as a character. And the Scarecrow is unique because it allowed the opportunity, I think, to depict a villain that was truly scary and frightening. And because Chris and I wanted to tell a story about fear and overcoming your fear, it just seemed like a no-brainer.
Was there a sense of too many villains might spoil the broth?
DAVID GOYER: I know some people were concerned. “Oh my God, they’re going to do two villains.” But we wouldn’t have done it if it didn’t fit in a very organic way. I mean, Chris is a real task master and a perfectionist and when you’re working with him – and Cillian can attest to this – he’s hyper-critical about everything has to make sense. Everything has to be motivated. Even a line the audience would love, if it doesn’t make sense, if it’s just there as a sort of Easter Egg for the audience, he won’t do it. He holds everything up to a very high criteria and fortunately we were able to come up with a story that made perfect and total sense why there were two of them, and why they were sort of interwoven into the story. It’s very organic.
Since the movie has to do with fear, did you talk to Christian Bale about that topic? How was it to work with Bale?
CILLIAN MURPHY: Yeah, well we did obviously discuss it, you know, and then like all the scenes with me and Chris and Christian> That’s a fair point, they’re at the two polar opposites about what they are doing with fear in some way and using it for a different end, I guess. And then Christian, he just looks so fantastic in the suit you know? It’s great because you’re like, “That’s Batman.” And he’s wonderful on set. He’s so committed to it. He was in training for months and months before this. All the fight stuff is really impressive. But we had good fun, too. I really enjoyed it.
Did you have to slim down for this role?
CILLIAN MURPHY: Well, I don’t have that much girth anyway. But like in the comics, he’s definitely scarecrow-like.
DAVID GOYER: Gangly.
CILLIAN MURPHY: Yeah. So we did play with that.
Why bring “Batman: Begins” to Comic Con?
DAVID GOYER: Comic Con has become the place to sort of initially mount a campaign, whether it’s for a comic book announcement, a video game, a genre film. So it made sense. And I think had we not had a presence here it would have been a kind of glaring omission. And I think first and foremost everyone would have been, “Are they trying to hide something?” It made sense and it just seemed like I think if they’d only been filming for two weeks or something like that, Chris wouldn’t have wanted to do it. But because most of the principal photography has been finished and kind of the shape of the film has been carved out, I think everyone felt comfortable.
