Kevin Smith Explains Why Warners Bros. Will Continue Playing with Micheal Keaton's Batman Instead of Ben Affleck's
Michael Keaton is about to make his big return as Batman in The Flash movie, and he’s also set to appear in the Batgirl movie being developed. It seems like Keaton is going to the DCEU’s Batman from here on out. This falls in line with rumors that we were hearing about a year ago.
A lot of fans of the Zack Snyder DC films are a little upset about this because they want to see more of Ben Affleck’s version of Batman. I actually like Affleck’s Batman, but I’m still totally fine with seeing Keaton brought back into the mix because he’s one of my all-time favorites.
For those of you wondering why Warner Bros. isn’t going to continue playing with Affleck’s Batman, it’s simply because the actor isn’t interested in playing the character anymore. Kevin Smith, recently explained the situation of his Fatman Beyond podcast saying:
"I'm a big fan of Michael Keaton as Batman. I was a big fan of Ben Affleck as Batman as well, but as we just saw recently in an interview, Ben was like 'I'm not going to do IP movies anymore.' So, Ben has made it clear for a number of years now that he's done playing Batman. Not that Warner Bros. is done with him; he's done with them. So they couldn't use Ben as the Batman for this new Batgirl movie, and at that point you're already doing Michael Keaton Batman in Flash...it seems to make sense.
I assumed Michael Keaton was as beloved for every generation as he is to mine, but some folks on Twitter were very angry about that -- but angry at the wrong person. This ain't a case of Warner Bros. screwing the pooch or something. The person they would like to keep playing Batman just doesn't seem interested in playing Batman at all, and has made that very clear for a very hot minute. So in lieu of Ben, who else are you going to do? Bring on a brand-new Batman, start that?
Obviously Matt Reeves is doing a very different-from-the-DCEU-movies version of Batman, so you can't get him. So it makes sense. If you need a veteran, an older guy, if you're going to do this Batman Beyond version of Batgirl, where she's kind of Terry McGinnis in training, and he's the grizzled old vet or something? I cosign it, because that was my Batman, that was our Batman. I mean, Adam West was my first Batman, but Michael Keaton was a wonderful Batman, and I think it's crazy seeing people on Twitter going after that decision."
Yeah, I’m totally pumped up about Michael Keaton coming back as Batman! That is one of the coolest things that WB can bring into these DC films!
You can watch the full episode below, with Smith's comments about Batman starting at the 12 minute mark. In the episode, they also discuss Hawkeye and Spider-Man: No Way Home, so if you haven’t watched those Marvel projects yet, be careful!