Matt Reeves’s upcoming The Batman is starting to look not so much like a reboot of the character, but a cornerstone for a whole new reinvigorated cinematic Batman franchise.
Forbes is reporting that Warner Brothers is not just hoping the Reeves’s film will be the first of a new trilogy of Batman films, but it will serve as a launching pad for a number of spinoff films featuring other heroes from the Batman-related comics published by DC Comics.
[I]t’s expected that the upcoming Batgirl film project will be tied into this new bat-world, and the currently delayed Nightwing movie has to wait until the status of Batman’s sidekick has been settled. From what I’ve heard, Dick Grayson is expected to make an appearance in one of the Reeves movies, probably in the form of an origin story (whether that’s the film’s main plot or a subplot, however, remains to be seen).
Of course, all of this remains to be seen how or if this will even fit into Warner Brothers’ DC Expanded Cinematic Universe. That shared universe set of films already had a Batman in the form of Ben Affleck’s appearances in Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, Suicide Squad and Justice League. So far Reeves has been mum as to whether his film, which will feature a younger Bruce Wayne, is or isn’t a prequel of sorts to those films. And if Reeves’ film and the ones that could follow are not part of that shared world and instead are their own, contained thing much like next week’s Joker, where does that leave Batman in the DCEU? Do they cast someone to replace Affleck and have two different cinematic Dark Knights? It should be interesting to see how this will unfold.
