Right now, the DCEU is in flux after the serious under performance of Justice League last month. Now, Variety is reporting that a major shakeup is coming to DC Films, starting in January: Ben Affleck is expected to leave the Batman role soon. But there was an interesting tidbit in that original report — apparently, while director Matt Reeves would recast Bruce Wayne for his new stand alone Batman movie, Ben Affleck would still reprise the role for a potential Flashpoint movie. But after that, the future of the Caped Crusader is up in the air.
Now, for those familiar with the Flashpoint comic book story, they know this would not require a lot of time from Affleck. The character of Bruce Wayne appears only briefly at the beginning and end of the story. In the comic book Flashpoint, The Flash travels back in time to save his mother from being murdered. In doing so, he created a ripple effect which results in an alternate timeline, one in which, among many other changes, Bruce Wayne’s parents were not killed in the alley that night. Instead, young Bruce Wayne was killed.
This change results in his father, Thomas Wayne becoming an even darker version of Batman. The Walking Dead star Jeffrey Dean Morgan played Bruce’s father in the flashback in Batman v Superman, which is why everyone expects him to play the Batman version of Thomas Wayne in Flashpoint. The Flash eventually restores the original timeline, but some things are still very different when he returns to his DC Universe.
The popular theory is that Warner Brothers will use a Flashpoint film to “fix” the issues with the DCEU, essentially erasing all the parts that audiences didn’t respond to, and keeping the things people like. When the Flash returns from his alternate universe adventure, could he find that Bruce Wayne is maybe now a different person all together? While it doesn’t make any real scientific sense, you could say the Flashpoint effect changed the universe so much that some people even appear different afterwards. Which means that the movie could start with Batfleck, but end with another actor as Bruce Wayne. Look, timey-wimey changes shouldn’t result in William Shatner suddenly looking like Chris Pine, but we accept it, right?
Ben Affleck has said that he was looking for a “graceful exit” for his Batman role, and this seems the most organic way to do it. The real question is, will Warner Brothers go through with a Flashpoint movie still? Almost everyone loved Ezra Miller as Flash, and I’d bet all the same people who came to see Justice League would see a Flash movie. A $200 million box office result for a Flash film would be totally acceptable I would think. I image we’ll find out once and for all in 2018.
What do you think of Ben Affleck playing Batman one more time in Flashpoint? Let us know your thoughts down below in the comments!
Images: Warner Brothers
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