Ben Affleck might be in Justice League as the DCEU’s Dark Knight, but he might not be holding onto the cowl for much longer: A new report claims that Warner Bros. is looking at plans to quietly phase out Affleck’s Batman and replace him with a new one.
Image: Warner Bros.
The Hollywood Reporter alleges that in the wake of both Affleck dropping out of directing the standalone Batman movie and his successor Matt Reeves ditching the actor’s script to start anew, Affleck could be on his way out of the role together sooner rather than later — and although he obviously can’t be removed from Justice League at this point, it’s far from guaranteed that Affleck will ultimately appear in The Batman.
THR further speculates that Warner Bros. could potentially look for a much younger star to take on the role — especially if Reeves’ plans for a whole Batman trilogy work out, as Affleck would be in his mid-’50s by the time a trilogy was over. As for how Affleck would be phased out, the studio would purportedly make any potential exit quietly, with the change only briefly acknowledged in a future DCEU movie.
We reached out to Warner Bros. for a comment on Affleck’s future in the role, and they directed us back to a previous statement from studio chief Toby Emmerich, also included in THR’s report:
Ben is our Batman. We love him as Batman. We want to keep him in the cowl as long as we can.
We’ll keep you updated if we hear more about Affleck’s future as Gotham’s Dark Knight.