Rumor: Ben Affleck's Batman Movie Will Feature A Ton Of Iconic Villains
The DC Comics film universe seems to be pretty shaky right now, with The Flash director Seth Grahame-Smith departing and Aquaman director James Wan rumored to potentially leave as well. This all seems to stem from Warner Bros. becoming more hands-on with the DC Comics films after Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice didn't live up to their expectations on a number of levels. But the one DC Comics movie that seems like a sure thing for the studio is Ben Affleck's solo Batman movie.
CinemaCon brought confirmation that Ben Affleck would star in and possibly direct the film that he is collaborating on with producer Geoff Johns. As of now, we don't know when the film will hit theaters, but with Ben Affleck's grizzled version of The Dark Knight being one of the best things to come out of Batman v Superman, fans are very excited to see what the Argo director will do with the superhero.
Now a new rumor gives a few details about what Affleck and Johns have in store, and it involves bringing a bunch of iconic Batman villains into the mix. Find out more about the Ben Affleck Batman movie villain roster after the jump.
Birth.Death.Movies, the same source behind the rumors of James Wan maybe leaving Aquaman, has uncovered some details about the villains in the movie that may or may not be called The Batman. While they don't know who the primary villain of the movie will be, their sources have revealed that a slew of Batman's iconic bad guys will be appearing throughout the movie. While no specific names are mention, the report says, "It's going to be crammed with Bat villains, which means that just about every major bad guy you've ever wanted to see in a movie will be in this movie."
More than likely, Batman won't be facing off with each and every villain we'll see in the movie. The report even speculates that maybe a majority of them would be cameos of them locked up in Arkham Asylum. After all, we don't know exactly when in the DC Comics movie timeline this flick will take place, so Batman could have already locked up some of the better known villains. The idea is that Affleck and Johns want an established Batman universe to play with to "tell the ultimate Batman story."
The report also makes an off-handed guess that maybe the solo Batman movie will take some cues from the video game Batman: Arkham Asylum. For those who don't know, the game features The Joker enacting a plot to seize control of the facility that houses Batman's captured villains and trapping The Dark Knight inside to face all his greatest foes again. Meanwhile, The Joker is also threatening to detonate hidden bombs around Gotham City, forcing Batman to fight his way out in order to keep his city safe.
The second part of that definitely sounds like it's better suited for a video game than a film plot, but trapping Batman in Arkham Asylum sounds like it could be fun. Or maybe The Joker just takes control of Arkham Asylum and frees all of Batman's apprehended bad guys, leaving them to bide their time and terrorize Gotham City again. It would set up the possibility of sequels, which is what Warner Bros. is probably hoping for in the end.
Honestly, if this is true I'm glad we don't have to get any villain origin stories in the Batman universe again. Having a Batman movie where the world is already established means we can just dig right into the meat of the story. But there's always the chance that it could get too crowded. We've seen plenty of times in comic book movies how multiple villains can be overwhelming. Hopefully Affleck and Johns know what they're doing.