Ben Affleck will direct and star in his own Batman movie, Warner Bros chairman and CEO Kevin Tsujihara has officially confirmed.
Affleck is currently starring as the caped crusader in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. He has generally been praised for his debut in the role, though Zack Snyder’s superhero epic has received short shrift from critics and looks likely to fall short of the magic $1bn mark at the box office despite a blistering worldwide opening weekend of $422.5m last month.
But speaking at the CinemaCon event in Las Vegas, Tsujihara touted Snyder’s movie as the perfect foundation for the studio’s planned cinematic universe based on its rights to the DC Comics back catalogue.
“It set up a great foundation for our DC slate, which includes at least 10 movies through 2020,” said Tsuijhara. “I’m also excited to know that we will be working with Ben Affleck on a stand-alone Batman movie.”
There have long been reports that Affleck, a recent Oscar-winner for his work as a film-maker on the period thriller Argo, would eventually take charge of Batman. Last month the actor and director’s agent, Patrick Whitesell at WME-IMG, told the Hollywood Reporter that his client had already written the script for his own film.
Affleck is also due to return as the dark knight of Gotham in two Justice League movies, in which he will team up with Henry Cavill’s Superman and Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman to defend the Earth, though the shine has been somewhat taken off that prospect by the derisive critical response to Dawn of Justice.
The Hollywood Reporter suggests Affleck’s debut solo outing could arrive in cinemas for either 5 October, 2018 or 1 November, 2019, both of which have been set aside by Warner for unspecified comic book movies.
In other Batman news, delegates at CinemaCon were treated to a sneak peek at the new Lego Batman movie, revealing the first big screen appearance for the caped crusader’s perennial sidekick Robin since Joel Schumacher’s disastrous 1997 outing, Batman & Robin. The clip reportedly reveals that the new Robin, voiced by Michael Cera, is the caped crusader’s adopted son, Batman having accidentally returned from a swanky gala some years before with the fledgling crime fighter in tow. It also emerges that Robin’s red and green costume originated as Batman’s “Reggae Man” outfit from a long ago “caper” in Jamaica.
