If you were like me, the success of Wonder Woman gave you hope that Warner Brothers has straightened out their approach to their DC Extended Universe films. Well, give up all hope, because if rumors are to be believed, they haven’t. Because they are getting rid of Ben Affleck as The Batman.
The Hollywood Reporter states that the studio is trying to “usher out Affleck’s Batman gracefully” in a change that will be reflected in the DCEU films.
Why? The article doesn’t explicitly say, but it theorizes that age is playing a factor. The Batman writer/director Matt Reeves is planning for a trilogy of films. Since Affleck is pushing 50, he might be at retirement age by the time the trilogy is through.
This discounts the fact that the DCEU’s Batman is older by design. So, is Warners going to replace Affleck with a slightly younger but still world weary actor? Or will we get a different Batman, one that is not Bruce Wayne played by a much younger actor. How are you going to introduce that? And why would anyone want to pay money to see that?
Of course, this is running under the assumption that Warners wants to get rid of Affleck and not vice versa. Maybe Affleck, who already stepped down as director and had his script scrapped by Reeves, wants out. His situation now is the definition of “not what he signed on for.”
Warners still claims to be 100% behind Affleck, so this might all be faulty information from a disgruntled source. But if it is true, the studio might want to get ready for the criticism to start back up again. This is a lame-brained move that could have been avoid with just a little bit of foresight. They deserve all the angry posts they get.
