batman

Matt Reeves, the director that replaced Ben Affleck on ‘The Batman’ felt the need to set the record straight on his film ‘The Batman’ and its place in the DCEU.  A quote that Reeves made from July caused a bit of a panic.  In speaking on the podcast The Business to promote ‘War for the Planet of the Apes’, he said, “Well, I have a vision for a way to do something with that character that feels like it resonates with me personally, and a perspective that can grow out into other things. When they [Warner Bros.] approached me, what they said was ‘look, it’s a standalone, it’s not part of the extended universe.”

Reeves’ quote made the rounds following the announcement that Warner Brothers was launching a “boutique” line of DC Comics movies that would not connect to the DCEU, starting with a ‘Joker’ origin movie produced by Martin Scorsese, without Jared Leto as the title character.  There was speculation that ‘The Batman’ would also fall under the same umbrella, but rest assured that isn’t the case.

This is what I thought from the start. As I previously wrote, ‘Wonder Woman’ was basically a stand-alone movie that just barely touched on the larger DCEU and only in the opening and closing framing sequence.  And ‘Wonder Woman’ is a phenomenal success.  It appears, while Warner Brothers is still building a shared universe, they aren’t tying every film together into one over-reaching story arc.  There may a reference or two to the larger DCEU in ‘The Batman’, but it’s not setting up any other movies or picking up any threads from any movies that come before it.

‘The Batman’ has been in development since before ‘Batman V Superman’ even arrived in theaters and Affleck was meant to write the script, direct and star in this new solo film.  But script problems plagued the production resulting in Affleck stepping down from the director’s chair.

That remains the case.  Reportedly, the entire script is being re-written from page one.  Therefore, there is no release date being eyed at this point.  Affleck will return as Batman/Bruce Wayne in ‘Justice League’ on November 17.  He may also pop up in ‘Suicide Squad 2’, ‘Gotham City Sirens’ or ‘Harley Quinn Vs. The Joker’, none of which have release dates either.

Are you glad that ‘The Batman’ starring Affleck is actually set within the still unfolding DCEU?