It looks like there are going to be two Batmen in the DC Extended Universe in the years to come.
The hectic state over at Warner Bros and DC Entertainment at the moment has already allowed for two Joker movies to simultaneously enter development, but those two are not expected to share any continuity.
That's not the case with the current plans for Batman. Variety is reporting that The Batman director Matt Reeves really is intent on casting his own Bruce Wayne for a possible trilogy that is only tangentially connected to the DCEU.
Recent reporting has Jake Gyllenhaal as the frontrunner to become the next Batman for Matt Reeves, keeping in mind that no deal has been signed yet between Gyllenhaal and Warner Bros.
And yet, none of this means that we've actually seen the last of Ben Affleck as the Dark Knight. Variety notes that Affleck is expected to return as Batman at least once more in the upcoming Flashpoint movie.
Flashpoint is a wibbly wobbly, timey wimey adventure centred around Barry Allen accidentally messing up the DC Universe timeline, to the point where Wonder Woman and Aquaman become arch enemies, and Batman is actually Bruce Wayne's father Thomas.
If Affleck is taking part in Flashpoint, it could serve as the perfect opportunity for him to make his "graceful and cool" exit without majorly disrupting the DCEU continuity.
Last month, Flash actor Ezra Miller laid the groundwork for Flashpoint to shake the very foundations of the DCEU, teasing: "What fans understand when they hear Flashpoint would be almost like hearing a word like 'Crisis'.
"We start to understand that our precious DC universe will inevitably be torn asunder to an endless, headache-inducing fabric of multiversality. The DC Hyper-Extended Multiverse, as I plan to call it. Quote me!"
All of this is dependent on a major creative shake-up behind the scenes at Warner Bros, which will see Justice League producer Jon Berg stepping away from the DCEU following the movie's box office failure.
