Ben Affleck will be returning as Bruce Wayne, donning the cap and cowl of Batman once more in the upcoming The Flash movie.
The casting was confirmed by a report from Vanity Fair. It also confirmed reports that the movie will focus on DC Comic's 2011 Flashpoint series, in which The Flash, aka Barry Allen, the super speedy hero currently being played by Ezra Miller, opens up paths to parallel dimensions.
And with parallel dimensions comes the potential to bring out all sorts of variations on characters old and new which means that, in truly exciting news, Micheal Keaton, the caped crusader of Tim Burton's late 80s and early 90s Batman films, will also be returning.
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Speaking of Affleck's involvement, director Andy Muschietti said:
"He’s a very substantial part of the emotional impact of the movie. The interaction and relationship between Barry and Affleck’s Wayne will bring an emotional level that we haven’t seen before.
"It’s Barry’s movie, it’s Barry’s story, but their characters are more related than we think. They both lost their mothers to murder, and that’s one of the emotional vessels of the movie. That’s where the Affleck Batman kicks in.”
As we've discussed before, the introduction of the multiverse is a smart move from DC. It allows all its various (sometimes conflicting) takes on its popular characters to exist at once, from Batfleck to Robert Pattinson's upcoming The Batman, Jared Leto's Suicide Squad Joker and Joaquin Phoenix's Oscar winning take on the villain.
Fandom can be very divisive, and having multiple takes on a character, just as in the world of comics (while giving them an in-canon reason to exist alongside each other) lets fans of all the different incarnations have their cake and eat it.
The Flash movie is currently slated to hit cinemas in 2022. Expect to hear more on its development during this week's DC Fandome event.
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