It’s easy to forget now, but there was a time when Ben Affleck’s Batman looked set to be an even bigger part of the DCEU. He’d debuted in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in 2016 and made an impactful cameo in Suicide Squad that same year.
Neither movie received a particularly warm response from critics, of course, but Affleck—who was coming off hits like Argo and The Town as both actor and director—was gearing up to put his own stamp on the Caped Crusader.
Teaming with comic book writer Geoff Johns, Affleck intended to write and direct The Batman for Warner Bros. On the set of Justice League—when Zack Snyder was still in the director’s chair—he even shot and Tweeted out a teaser featuring Deathstroke.
The plan had been for his version of The Batman to pit Bruce Wayne against Joe Manganiello’s Slade Wilson after Lex Luthor told the assassin who was really beneath Batman’s mask (revenge for being locked in Arkham Asylum by the Dark Knight).
Ultimately, a mix of personal issues and a negative experience on Justice League’s reshoots with Joss Whedon led Affleck to walk away from The Batman. Matt Reeves boarded the movie in early 2017, but by July, he’d scrapped the actor’s script and decided to tell a very different story with a completely different Batman.
It’s a little heartbreaking to think about what might have been, and Snyder has given us a taste of that with a never-before-seen photo of Affleck’s Batman. A brooding shot that’s not unlike a comic panel come to life, it’s now that little bit easier to imagine The Batman in its previous form.
Affleck did eventually return to the DCEU for The Flash, but that proved something of a disappointment. He’d intended to be part of a Crisis on Infinite Earths movie, too, but all those plans were scrapped when DC Studios was formed.
“I loved Batman v Superman. And I liked my brief stints on The Flash that I did and when I got to work with Viola Davis on Suicide Squad for a day or two,” Affleck previously said. “In terms of creatively, I really think that I like the idea and the ambition that I had for it, which was of the sort of older, broken, damaged Bruce Wayne. And it was something we really went for in the first movie.”
Check out Snyder’s latest Instagram post below.