Ben Affleck's Batman Future in Doubt
Ben Affleck’s time as Batman could be coming to an end as Warner Bros. plan the next move for the DCEU.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the studio plans to usher out Affleck gradually, who this weekend will take to SDCC to promote the Justice League movie which is due to hit cinemas on 17th November.
Despite Warner Bros. publicly backing Affleck, with director Matt Reeves currently working on the as-yet unwritten The Batman script, it seems that plans are being drawn and it wouldn’t be surprising if Affleck was dropped from The Batman – his script, co-written with Geoff Johns has already been thrown out.
With Reeves talking about a Batman trilogy and Affleck pushing 55 years-old by the time the trilogy would reach its conclusion, it might not be Affleck who fills the cowl come the end of those three films.
As a source with ties to the situation observes, there is precedent in the Batman comics for Bruce Wayne handing off the mantle to others, and even for two different Batmen cleaning up the streets of Gotham simultaneously.
There are numerous precedents in the comic books for this situation including Knightfall, where Bruce Wayne temporarily vacated the cowl after his back was broken by Bane, Dick Grayson’s time as the Batman as Bruce went upstairs forming Batman Inc. to fight crime around the world (if Reeves is going down the noir route perhaps he could adapt the Grayson Batman story, The Black Mirror, or, they could head down the animated route and go for a Batman Beyond scenario with an elderly Bruce Wayne training a Batman of the future.
