The last time Michael Keaton stepped into Batman’s jet black shoes was in 1992, for Tim Burton’s Batman Returns. Since then, we’ve seen a lot of actors put on the cape and cowl, from Val Kilmer to George Clooney to Christian Bale to Ben Affleck and finally Robert Pattinson, who’s playing Bruce Wayne in a brand new solo adventure to come out in theaters next year.
But there may be room for members of the old guard to make a comeback. The Hollywood Reporter has it that Keaton is in talks to reprise his role as the Caped Crusader, not in a new Batman movie, but rather in the solo The Flash movie starring Ezra Miller…and possibly beyond even that.
Apparently, the plan is to have Keaton’s Batman do for the DC movies what Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury did for the Marvel Cinematic Universe: be a kind of connecting thread that brings multiple heroes together. We’re looking at a soft reboot of the DC Extended Universe here. Warner Bros. tried to take it from zero to 50,000 by going from Man of Steel to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice to Justice League. I’d thought that maybe they were just going to concentrate on doing solo movies for a while, but apparently they still have shared universe dreams.
As for how Keaton’s Batman could show up, CBR thinks The Flash movie will involve the titular hero zooming in and out of alternate realities, something he does in the Flashpoint storyline from the comics. In one, perhaps he finds Keaton’s Batman from the old Burton movies, decades older and ready to pull some strings. There’s also a rumor that Jeffrey Dean Morgan may reprise the role of Thomas Wayne, whom he played in Batman v Superman. But this wouldn’t be the Thomas Wayne who died with his wife in that alley and left young Bruce an orphan; this would be an alternate reality version who takes up the mantle of Batman himself after his son is killed in that same incident.
There are a lot of alternate realities in comics. The Flash movie will have a lot of material to work with if it goes down this route.
The Flash is directed by IT director Andy Muschietti. It’s due out in theaters on June 3, 2022.
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