Ben Affleck’s Batman Script Revealed By New Director
We know a lot more about Ben Affleck's script!
This article is more than 2 years old
The Ben Affleck Batman movie that never was has just had a few more details dropped. According to an interview with Esquire Middle East, director Matt Reeves revealed that he had been given the opportunity to utilize the screenplay written by Affleck and Geoff Johns. When it was written around 2015, Affleck was set to both co-write and director the film, as well as star as the Caped Crusader. The former Daredevil and Gigli had a notably difficult experience during his tenure playing Batman, and eventually stepped away from the role entirely. In Reeves’ upcoming movie The Batman, the role will be played by British actor Robert Pattinson.
According to Matt Reeves, the Ben Affleck Batman movie (which was also to be called The Batman) had a very different tone from his soon to be released film. In the Esquire interview, he praises the script, and notes that it had an almost “James Bond” element, which we can only assume means a lot of Bat-Gadgets and Quantums of Solaces. Ultimately, however, Reeves decided to take the film in an entirely different direction. Inspired by the Batman: Year Two mini-series (written by Mike W. Barr), Reeves built the movie around the idea of a Bruce Wayne who had already become Batman, but was still working out exactly how to fight crime. The trailer for The Batman seems to indicate that, as it turns out, his current main approach is savagely beating up people.
Now that we know a little bit more about Matt Reeves’ film, it is made clear that it will lean more into the “detective” aspect of the World’s Greatest Detective than most previous portrayals. The Ben Affleck Batman movie was to be mostly set in Arkham Asylum and star Joe Manganiello as Deathstroke. On the other hand, Reeves has mentioned in interviews that he was inspired by the notorious unsolved Zodiac Killer murders of the 1970s. In particular, the main villain of the movie is heavily influenced by the still-unknown murderer; that villain is set to be the first version of The Riddler since Jim Carrey’s nuanced take on the role. Paul Dano will be portraying him this time around. Both Reeves and Robert Pattinson have also discussed their interpretation of Gotham playboy Bruce Wayne as having a lot in common with 1990s Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, which is…interesting.
The Ben Affleck Batman movie is unlikely to be ever realized at this point. Affleck has recently opened up about playing the iconic superhero in several movies, specifically describing his work on Justice League as “the worst experience.” As planned, it would have had more ties with the previous DCEU films than Reeves’ The Batman, taking place after Justice League and presumably keeping in that continuity. Warner Bros has since made a big swerve from their initial plan of imitating the shared universe concept of their competitors at Marvel Studios and going a bit more loose with various projects. The Batman is only one film in a large slate of DCEU to be released in 2022, but maybe someday we’ll find out a bit more about what could have been.
