Chris Wozniak, a former comic book artist and writer for DC comics, is claiming that his story was stolen and used for Matt Reeves’ The Batman in a new trending hashtag, #BatmanGate.
Going by the handle @BatmanGate on Twitter, Chris Wozniak (Woz)’s entire Twitter profile is dedicated to the current situation, his Bio stating “The unsold Batman Plot I gave to Michael Uslan is the Main Storyline in THE BATMAN, Warner Bros. (2022).” And has trending tweets like “CHRIS WOZNIAK has reported MICHAEL USLAN and MATT REEVES to the FBI for INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY THEFT of his BATMAN story” and “There’s NO REASON not to bring LAW ENFORCEMENT into this.”
He has gone as far as to release a YouTube video explaining his claims and tweets which detail “the facts” and “proof” that his intellectual property was stolen and used for The Batman movie, saying that he will “discuss the differences between my plot and the film, and use them to prove that the film itself is based directly on my plot, and not any other story”.
Quoting the video link from another tweet, he replied to his own with, “MATT REEVES needs to explain to PRESS why unique specific RE-WRITES of WOZNIAK’S PLOT are in THE BATMAN film. PROOF his screenplay is a KNOCK-OFF.”
Is There Truth Behind Chris Wozniak’s Claims?
To be honest, anything could be true at this point. Twitter is currently dominated by the #BatmanGate hashtag and fans are not being given any other side to the story.
Wozniak’s video “explaining” the similarities and differences to “prove” that his story was stolen, has been very heavily criticized by DC fans acknowledging that the points he is bringing up are very generic story points that are apparent in almost every comic book in Batman history.
Is there a possibility that the story was stolen? Of course. Intellectual property theft is no new story in Hollywood.
Is it likely that the story was stolen? Not quite as likely.
Matt Reeves claimed that his screenplay was entirely new and not based on any existing Batman storyline at present. With the decades of Batman content that is available through the comics, it’s unlikely that anything is truly 100% unique and has not been thought of before, but that doesn’t make the story stolen.
What Fans Think
Currently, there appear to be two major sides to the fanbase regarding this issue.
Some fans are wholehearted with Chris Wozniak and support his claims, and who are the ones currently making the hashtag (#Batmangate) trend, and those who are against it and have pointed out many reasons not to.
Fans supporting the claims have been compared to “Snyderverse cultists” who are pushing the hashtag the same way that they did with #ReleaseTheSnyderCut. Having almost caused World War 3 with their previous cyber-attacks on Warner Bros. and their staff, let’s hope that the situation is resolved quickly.
The other side of the proverbial fence consists of those who see no truth in Wozniak’s claims and are quick to point out reasons why they don’t. Redditor XxCasxX says that Wozniak’s claims are “baseless”, pointing out that the “proof” he points out in his video is “straight up false”.
“He claims both stories have Gordon as the “last honest cop” left in Gotham, but in The Batman there’s cops like Martinez, and an entire scene and statement is dedicated to showing a contingent of the police force is still good.
He claims that the two stories have “exactly” the same “Big Twist”, which is that Riddler knows Batman is Bruce Wayne and is going to reveal it to the world. This is despite the fact that Riddler in The Batman doesn’t know who Batman really is, nor does he even seem interested to know because he sees Batman as the real person.
He claims that Joker in both stories was secretly behind all of Riddler’s activities the entire time and was manipulating him anonymously online. Clearly not the case in The Batman!”
You can check out the Reddit discussion for yourself here:
When it comes to serious claims like intellectual property theft, it’s important to do your research before choosing a side that you think is correct.
