Holy multiple Batmans, Batman!
Yes, as the headline suggests, Ben Affleck is to once more suit up as the Dark Knight for Andy Muschietti’s The Flash.
Courtesy of Vanity Fair, Muschietti himself has confirmed that Affleck’s Batman will be a part of the upcoming solo picture for Ezra Miller’s Barry Allen.
On the importance of Affleck’s Caped Crusader in The Flash, Muschietti enthused, “He’s a very substantial part of the emotional impact of the movie. The interaction and relationship between Barry and Affleck’s Wayne will bring an emotional level that we haven’t seen before. It’s Barry’s movie, it’s Barry’s story, but their characters are more related than we think. They both lost their mothers to murder, and that’s one of the emotional vessels of the movie. That’s where the Affleck Batman kicks in.”
In some hugely positive news from this story, The Flash producer Barbara Muschietti has discussed those previous rumblings that Affleck had a miserable time playing Batman in Batman v Superman and Justice League. As Barbara put it, “I think it was more about a difficult time in his life. When we approached him, he’s now in a very different time in his life. He was very open to it, which was a bit of a surprise to us.”
Wait, did we say multiple Batmans? Why, yes we did. That would be because this past June saw speculation that Michael Keaton was set to reprise his own particular Batman for a role in The Flash and beyond.
On that front, Andy Muschietti indeed confirmed that Keaton’s Bruce Wayne will have a “substantial” part to play in The Flash. Keaton, of course, played the World’s Greatest Detective in 1989’s Batman and its 1992 follow-up Batman Returns.
For what feels like forever, fans have romanticised over the notion of Michael Keaton one day donning the cape and cowl again, with Frank Miller’s seminal The Dark Knight Returns often cited as the perfect way to do such a return. What we do know about Keaton’s return to the world of DC Comics, is that the current plan is for his Bruce Wayne to serve as a mentor figure across several DC-based movies, ala Nick Fury in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
At present, the tentative plan is for The Flash to speed to the silver screen at some point in 2022.
