The Batman

I had worked with Rupert Sanders on Ghost in the Shell, and Rupert introduced me to production designer James Chinlund. James and I connected immediately. When he asked whether I would be interested in designing the Batmobile for Matt Reeves’ Batman, I was completely elated.

I have followed Batman my entire life. I also love cars, designing them, and building my own. Those interests came together in a way that felt almost impossible to imagine beforehand. To me, there is no more meaningful car in movie history than the Batmobile. What it represents within the franchise made the opportunity feel enormous.

I approached the project almost as a method actor would approach a role. I tried to imagine that I was Bruce Wayne, building this car myself in my garage. If I were a broken person with an incessant need to seek justice, and I had his resources, skills, and abilities, what would I make?

I had watched Matt’s films and was drawn to how strongly he works through theme. I wanted to understand this version of Bruce through the design, allowing the car to carry something of the person inside it. The intention was always to make an object that belonged to his world and could plausibly have been built by him.

I thought about Bruce as a protected, fractured person, with Batman as the outside persona he has constructed. The car became a metaphor for that relationship: a cage holding his fear and pain, surrounded by a shell intended to invoke fear in others.

The Charger gave me a way to connect that idea to the body. Seen from above, its shape suggested the two ears of Batman’s cowl. Those kinds of motifs helped the design feel connected to the character without having to state the connection literally.

Matt also referenced Christine. An early rear view with the engine exposed became an important point of connection between us. He responded to the idea of the heart of the beast sticking out: something alive, almost a monster. That exposed machinery gave the car a presence beyond its silhouette.

My first concepts were rough kitbashed models in Cinema 4D, assembled from different car parts and simple low-poly forms. I wanted to cast a wide net quickly. Was this a four-wheeled car, something closer to an off-road vehicle, or a hybrid between a car and a tank? I presented roughly six variations to find the boundaries of what Matt and James were imagining.

The brief was generous. It was built around words and feelings, including power and something visceral, rather than a long list of constraints. Their feedback helped me find the voice of the car. They did not want another Tumbler, and those early explorations helped us establish a different direction.

For me, those first presentations are also about trust. I want to demonstrate that I understand the project and can contribute to it, so the relationship can develop into a real collaboration. Once Matt and James saw where I was heading, their support gave me the freedom to keep refining the design.

My focus was on the design and its details. The team at Warner Bros. took that work into 3D CAD and translated it into a production-ready vehicle. Seeing that expertise bring the design into the physical world was an extraordinary part of the process.

I wanted the car to feel grounded in real machinery and in Bruce’s ability to build it himself. James and Matt gave me the freedom to think that way. Because I build my own cars, I felt a personal connection to that approach: the way a vehicle comes together, the choices its builder makes, and the character those choices leave in it.