''Batkid Begins'' is a 2015 American

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

co-produced (with Liza Maek), co-written (with

Kurt Kuenne Kurt Kuenne is an American filmmaker and composer. He has directed a number of short and feature films, including ''Rent-a-Person'', the YouTube film ''Validation'', described as "a romantic epic in miniature", and the documentary '' Dear Zachar ...

) and directed by Dana Nachman. The documentary follows Miles Scott, an American child and cancer survivor. His wish was to be "

Batkid Batkid is the superhero name of Miles Scott, an American child and cancer survivor. His wish was to be "Batkid", a sidekick of the comic book superhero Batman, the subject of books, radio, television, and films. Once the request went out, thousand ...

", a sidekick of the eponymous

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

superhero Batman. Once the request went out, thousands of volunteers, city officials, businesses and supporters rallied to turn

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

into "

Gotham City Gotham City ( ), or simply Gotham, is a fictional city appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, best known as the home of the superhero Batman and his List of Batman supporting characters#Bat-Family, allies and List of Batman fa ...

" – the fictional home city of Batman, on November 15, 2013, for one of the largest and most elaborate

Make-A-Wish The Make-A-Wish Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in the United States that helps fulfill the wishes of children with a critical illness between the ages of and 18 years old. Make-A-Wish was founded in 1980 and headquar ...

projects ever staged. The film was released by

Warner Bros. Pictures Warner Bros. Pictures is an American film production and distribution company of the Warner Bros. Pictures Group division of Warner Bros. Entertainment (both ultimately owned by Warner Bros. Discovery). The studio is the flagship producer of ...

on June 26, 2015.

Cast

* Miles Scott as

/ Himself * Eric Johnston as Batman * Philip Watt as Riddler * Mike Jutan as Penguin * Sue Graham Johnston as Damsel in Distress * Joel Zimei as Lou Seal * Or Oppenheimer as

Catwoman Catwoman is a fictional character created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics, commonly in association with the superhero Batman. Debuting as "the Cat" in ''Batman'' #1 (spring 1940), she is ...

* Ron Oppenheimer as Superman * Nick Scott as Himself * Natalie Scott as Herself * Ryan Scott as Himself *

Ed Lee Edwin Mah Lee (Chinese: 李孟賢; May 5, 1952 – December 12, 2017) was an American politician and attorney who served as the 43rd Mayor of San Francisco from 2011 until his death. He was the first Asian American to hold the office. Born in ...

as Mayor of San Francisco * Greg Suhr as Chief of Police * Naomi Kyle as Herself * Patricia Wilson as Executive Director * Chris Taylor as Deputy Editor *

Hans Zimmer Hans Florian Zimmer (; born 12 September 1957) is a German film score composer and music producer. He has won two Oscars and four Grammys, and has been nominated for two Emmys and a Tony. Zimmer was also named on the list of Top 100 Living G ...

as Himself * Ama Daetz as Newscaster

Release

The film premiered at the

Slamdance Film Festival The Slamdance Film Festival is an annual film festival focused on emerging artists. The annual week-long festival takes place in Park City, Utah, in late January and is the main event organized by the year-round Slamdance organization, which als ...

on January 24, 2015. On March 12, 2015,

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

acquired the film. The film was released by Warner Bros. on June 26, 2015.

Reception

''Batkid Begins'' received positive reviews from critics. On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film has a rating of 82%, based on 60 reviews, with a rating of 7.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Sweet and unabashedly sentimental, ''Batkid Begins'' is an uplifting look at a selfless act that brought a city together." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a score of 63 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

References

External links

* 2015 films 2015 documentary films American documentary films New Line Cinema films Documentary films about children with disability Documentary films about cancer Documentary films about San Francisco Documentary films about fandom Batman in other media Warner Bros. films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films {{arts-documentary-film-stub