Spies have been all over the Michigan set for Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice, eager to catch a peek at any little snippet or detail for the recently rescheduled superhero mash-up. As such, each small piece of information has been analyzed and scrutinized beyond belief. Which is how we arrive at the photo above, which allegedly shows an interesting portrait being carried around..
Who is THAT handsome devil? Either Batman is good friends with Ron Burgundy's badass dad, or that's our first glimpse of Mr. Thomas Wayne. And, as noted, he does look quite a bit like Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who last worked with director Zack Snyder on Watchmen. If we're talking about similar facial structure to Ben Affleck, not a bad choice. Morgan's one of those guys who always looked like he could be a retired hero, all jowls and grimaces and that deep, dark-night-of-the-soul voice. Starring as comic's most doomed dad might be right up Morgan's alley.
Morgan is just a handful of years older than Affleck (who is reportedly playing a Batman close to his fifties, believe it or not), but his scenes would obviously be in flashback, where he'd be a powerful presence to young Bruce Wayne. On one level, gah, more origin crap. If there's anyone whose origin needs to give it a rest, it's Batman. On another level, this is probably just a cameo, probably smaller than Linus Roache's work in the Dark Knight films. We've heard nothing about Morgan thus far, which could mean he's shot his material quickly and without fuss. This movie is being guarded like it's got the ending to Game Of Thrones written into the script. Shooting Thomas Wayne footage while no one notices sounds like the sort of thing that could go unnoticed.
Now, the big issue: do we like Jeffrey Dean Morgan? In addition to The Comedian in Watchmen, where he brought great nuance and gravity to a complex character, Morgan achieved geek immortality with his association with the Supernatural TV series. Beyond that, however, his is not the strongest resume. His default is usually "burnt out and tired blue collar guy", so it's not really clear how he fits the Thomas Wayne attributes of basically being an industrialist and a saint. This whole film has been cast "against type" thus far, particularly with people like Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. But when does "against type" casting start to become "bad" casting? We'll see in March 2015.
