At virtually precisely this time final yr, information broke that Ben Affleck was coming again to Batman, reprising his function because the Caped Crusader in James Wan’s Aquaman 2, aka Aquaman and the Misplaced Kingdom. Affleck mentioned he was achieved enjoying Batman in DC’s live-action motion pictures all the best way again in 2019 — he even had a send-off ceremony for his run because the character. Beforehand he performed Bruce Wayne in Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Daybreak of Justice, then reprised the function in Justice League and cameoed within the David Ayer version of Suicide Squad.
However Jason Momoa took to Instagram in 2022 to disclose that Affleck would return as Batman within the Aquaman sequel, then scheduled for launch in March 2023. Quite a few scheduling modifications for each Aquaman 2 and The Flash messed with that plan, and now The Hollywood Reporter has revealed that after a number of rounds of reshoots, Batman has been minimize from Aquaman 2 totally.
That change is rather less shocking for individuals who did see The Flash when it lastly hit theaters in June, after being repeatedly bumped from its authentic July 2022 launch date. The Flash soft-resets DC’s cinematic universe, first letting Michael Keaton return to the Batman function, then bringing in one other visitor star for a comic book cameo. Releasing The Flash forward of Aquaman 2 created a continuity downside: After Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) messes with the continuity of the universe, Ben Affleck is not Batman in his world. So how would he return to play the function in Aquaman 2?
In line with the THR report, the Aquaman 2 Batman cameo initially featured Michael Keaton, who shot scenes for the function. When the discharge schedule modified and Aquaman 2 regarded like it might be launched first, Affleck was introduced in to reshoot that cameo. With director James Gunn and producer Peter Safran taking on the DC cinematic universe, the choice was reportedly made to chop the cameo altogether to keep away from confusion. “The most recent minimize of the movie options neither model of the Darkish Knight, in keeping with sources, as new DC heads James Gunn and Peter Safran don’t wish to promise a film universe that won’t come to fruition, nor tie it down excessively to previous failures,” THR studies.
There’s nonetheless time for that to alter but once more — Aquaman and the Misplaced Kingdom presently isn’t scheduled for launch till December 2023. However a lot of the purpose of placing Gunn and Safran in cost was a brand new give attention to sturdy management and decision-making in an organization that stored altering ways round its motion pictures, veering from a shared-universe imaginative and prescient for its superheroes to a sequence of unrelated one-offs. And Gunn has been notably vocal and particular about his plans for the brand new DC Universe. So we might have seen the final of Batfleck in any case — a minimum of till Aquaman 2 hits dwelling video, and the deleted scenes begin leaking on-line.
