Marvel surprised a lot of people, including, very likely, itself, when the studio found incredible success in bringing comic book continuity to the movie screen. Now, we’re entering a whole new world in comic book films as both Marvel and DC are building multiverses for their film characters. Luckily, if all of this is a bit too much for you, you’ll still be able to enjoy The Batman as it is confirmed to be a standalone story not connected to DC’s larger universe.
One of the big questions that arose when Ben Affleck’s Batman movie slowly evolved into Matt Reeves’ Batman movie, was what that meant for the DCEU. One assumed that when the project was going to include the Justice League actor, it would have been part of the same universe that included Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman and Henry Cavill’s Superman, but with Robert Pattinson taking over as the caped crusader it was all a bit more fuzzy. The Batman Producer Dylan Clark recently explained to Empire (via Slashfilm) that this new movie isn’t connected to the events of The Flash in any way, saying…
Warner Bros. has a multiverse where they're exploring different ways to use the character ... We don't get involved in that. Matt is interested in pushing this character to his emotional depths and shaking him to his core.
It seems that this is all because of director Matt Reeves, who specifically requested to have the freedom to tell a standalone story when he was approached to take over writing and directing duties from Ben Affleck. While fans certainly seem to love the cinematic universe concept, it's clear that one writer can’t simply come along and completely toss the playbook out the window when making a movie in that world, as there are larger story issues that at least need to be worked around.
Seeing Batman get shaken to his core certainly sounds like the new movie is going to go to some interesting places that we haven’t seen Batman reach in past movies, and that’s where the non-DCEU story makes the most sense. Whatever the future plans are for Batman in the larger DCEU, a version that is hitting his emotional depths may not be what the franchise is looking for from its Batman.
When The Flash does come out it will contain at least two different versions of Batman, the one played by Ben Affleck and the one played by Michael Keaton. Technically, the one played by Robert Pattinson is probably part of some offshoot of DC’s multiverse, but we shouldn’t expect that’s going to be important in either of these movies.
There’s still a comic book precedent for this idea. The Batman is essentially the graphic novel, which tells a complete story that isn’t necessarily connected to the monthly comic books. Those are part of an ongoing adventure that has perhaps lasted for decades. There’s room for both on the comic book shop shelves, and there probably will be at the multiplex too.
