A documentary about the adventures of Miles Scott, the 5-year-old boy who "saved" San Francisco in 2013, premiered in the city's Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, according to NBC Bay Area. The film, aptly called "Batkid Begins," shows the audience the events building up to the phenomenal and heart wrenching celebration two years ago which saw thousands of people lining up in the streets to support and witness the realization of a little boy's dream. "Batkid Begins" hits Bay Area theatres by Friday, while its national release is set for July.
"Batkid Begins" tells the story of how roughly 2 billion people on the Internet managed to converge and work together to make this young boy's dream come true. According to its website, the documentary "takes you back to November 15th, 2013, the day San Francisco turned into Gotham City, and the day the internet was nice."
While battling the disease, Miles had only one wish throughout the ordeal: to be the Batman. His parents, Nick and Natalie Scott, shared in the IndieGogo page that Miles has always had a very deep connection with the superhero even at a young age. One of his doctors told us that with this disease they just become like a fighter," Nick shared. He then added, "I think he sees the good versus evil battle in superheroes and just relates to it."
In an effort to make their son's dream come true, the couple sought the help of Make-A-Wish Foundation who then partnered with the San Francisco Bay Area officials to turn the city into Gotham, the make believe community of Batman. The initial plan was to invite at least 200 people to gather in the streets and cheer on Miles, aka Batkid, as he saves the city from the hands of evil. However, everything quickly escalated as the organizers found themselves figuring out how to handle 25,000 individuals volunteering to line up in the streets for the project.
"That event rocked my world," shared "Batkid Begins" director/producer and co-writer Dana Nachman, according to USA Today. She added, "People saw bits and pieces of this day and fell in love with Miles and the people who made it happen. My goal is to take you behind-the-scenes and see how and why it happened." In fact, even President Barack Obama himself was awed by Batkid's heroism and sent him a video message via Vine.
Miles, now 6 years old, has been battling leukemia for almost half his life. At the moment, he is in remission from the said disease. Kids Health states that "the term leukemia refers to cancers of the white blood cells (also called leukocytes or WBCs)." The organization adds, "When someone has leukemia, large numbers of abnormal white blood cells are produced in the bone marrow. These abnormal white cells crowd the bone marrow and flood the bloodstream, but they cannot perform their proper role of protecting the body against disease because they are defective."
As Miles is already in remission, it means he is on his way to recovery. "Remission means that no leukaemic cells can be found in the blood or bone marrow and the bone marrow is working normally again," Health Talk states.
