When creating art, inspiration can come from the most unlikely of places. Be it a musician noodling and creating a masterful symphony, a painter conveying abstract thoughts and feelings through brushstrokes on canvas, or a director filming a literary work that was deemed to be unfilmable, there is no limit to true creativity and artistic expression.
And that’s just as true when the subject of inspiration is… well, less than well received, let’s say. Yes, that includes movies like The Room, Tommy Wiseau’s 2003…drama, I think? that some* consider to be the worst film ever made**.
Could The Room have inspired Batman? According to VFX compositor Miguel Santana da Silva: absolutely.
da Silva recently shared a post on Twitter, where he revealed that the skyline background from The Room’s infamous rooftop scene helped him when designing Gotham’s own cityscape at sundown in The Batman.
He goes on in the replies to praise the “gothic spires silhouetted in pastel haze”, and you know what? He’s absolutely right. The layering of the characters in the foreground may look obviously green-screened, but the steeple near Wiseau and those two skyscrapers in the center of the frame have a ton of great character to them. If you just showed me that matte background and told me it was a section of the Gotham skyline, I’d believe you, so having that inspire The Batman’s atmosphere makes perfect sense.
Granted, I think da Silva is talking about the haze and texture of the skyline rather than the buildings themselves being the source of inspiration, but it’s still a fun little fact either way. Just goes to show that inspiration can truly come from anywhere, and any piece of art can have its own character and personality k regardless of perceived quality.
*Not us
**It’s not
