Ben Affleck’s days as The Batman are numbered.
At least, according to a new report.
The folks at Variety reveal that Ben Affleck won’t be appearing in The Batman – the upcoming Batman solo movie by director, Matt Reeves.
“While Ben Affleck is expected to appear as Batman in a standalone Flash movie, it is highly unlikely he will don the cape and cowl in Matt Reeves’ planned standalone Batman movie,” they revealed. “The director is said to want to cast the role with fresh talent, according to sources.”
Of course, many feared that Ben Affleck is ‘done’ with Batman.
Now, it looks as though there’s some truth to the rumours. And you can hardly blame him.
Since he donned the iconic cowl and cape in Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice he hasn’t exactly received a warm welcome. The movie vastly underperformed, with criticisms across the board. And while his take on the Dark Knight was actually pretty good, it seems he’s been plagued by rather rubbish plotlines.
And that extends into the recent Justice League movie, too.
That said, it sounds as though it’s not all on Affleck, and the director may not have wanted him to stick around, either. Early rumours suggest that Matt Reeves is looking to replace Affleck with a younger actor. Jake Gyllenhaal has already been tied to the movie, and Jon Hamm is said to be ‘gunning hard’ to take over from Affleck. It’s expected that we’ll see a casting announcement in the coming months.
But for fans of Ben Affleck’s Batman, it looks as though the end of the road is in sight.
That said, he’s still set to appear in Flashpoint – The Flash’s first solo outing… and that might actually provide an excellent in-universe way of replacing Ben Affleck as Batman. After all, we can expect plenty of timeline hijinx with that one, and it could give DC’s creative team a rather fitting way of adjusting its cast, going forward.
But for now, we’ll have to wait and see.
The Batman is (currently) expected to star Ben Affleck, Joe Manganiello, J.K. Simmons and Jeremy Irons.
Matt Reeves is both writing and directing the movie.
