A year after Christian Bale concluded his tenure as Batman in The Dark Knight Rises, Ben Affleck was announced as his successor, first appearing in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and reprising the role in Suicide Squad and Justice League. Given how Warner Bros has built a shared DC universe, many imagined that Affleck's iteration of Batman would stick around for a long time. But over the course of 2017, numerous rumors and reports have come out indicating that Affleck's time wearing the cape and cowl will come to a close soon. However, we're not quite done with him yet, as he'll reportedly appear in a movie starring a certain Scarlet Speedster.
According to Variety, Ben Affleck is expected to appear in The Flash's upcoming movie, which was revealed at this past summer's San Diego Comic-Con to be called Flashpoint. However, for those of you who have been looking forward to Affleck playing Gotham City's Dark Knight in Matt Reeves' standalone Batman movie, apparently the director wants to "cast the role with fresh talent." Although this is in sharp contrast with what Affleck said at Comic-Con about how excited he was to work with Reeves, this also isn't the first we've heard about a new actor being brought in to play Batman, as Jake Gyllenhaal was rumored to be in consideration to replace Affleck last month.
Assuming this information is legitimate, then it's possible that Flashpoint could be Ben Affleck's final Batman appearance. If that's the case, it would certainly make for one hell of an exit. For those unfamiliar with the Flashpoint storyline, Barry Allen wakes up in a drastically-different version of the main DC timeline, and one of the biggest changes is that Bruce Wayne was the one killed in Crime Alley that night, and it was Thomas Wayne who became Batman instead, while Martha Wayne fell into madness and became The Joker. At the end of the story, after Barry had managed to revert the timeline back to "normal," he visited Bruce in the Batcave and delivered a letter that Thomas had written for him.
DC president Geoff Johns has already confirmed that the Flashpoint movie, like the original story, will contain Batman elements, so in addition to possibly seeing the Thomas Wayne Batman, it looks like Ben Affleck's Bruce Wayne will be involved to some degree. More importantly, if the end of the Flashpoint movie leads to the main DC Extended Universe timeline being altered, just like the original Flashpoint led into the New 52 reboot, then perhaps this is how the franchise will introduce in a new actor to play Batman.
As for Matt Reeves' Batman movie, publicly the plan is to still have it exist within the DCEU, although it remains to be seen if it will be a prequel or take place after Justice League. After Reeves came aboard, he started working on the story from scratch, so it's unclear if Joe Manganiello's Deathstroke will be the main antagonist or Reeves has chosen a different member of Batman's rogues gallery to fill that role. Regardless, while we can't say with 100% certainty yet that Affleck won't star in The Batman, it's becoming a stronger possibility.
Keep checking back with CinemaBlend for any updates concerning Batman's DCEU future, and in the meantime, check out our DC movies guide to see what other projects this franchise has on the way.
