Ben Affleck's Solo BATMAN Film Is Going to be "Crammed" with Villains
I am a big fan of how Ben Affleck's Batman turned out in Dawn of Justice. He is a completely badass version of the character, and I'm extremely excited to see what Affleck does with the hero in the solo film he's currently developing. It was recently revealed that the actor/director will have full creative control of the film, which I think is a great thing.
We've heard rumors in the past that the new movie would be based on A Death in the Family and Under the Hood comic arcs, but according to Birth.Movies.Death., that's not necessarily the case. In this version of the story, the Jason Todd version of Robin is killed and then returns from the dead as a vengeful villain. The site doesn't claim to know who the main villain in the new Batman movie will be, but they do know that the film will be packed full of villains from Batman's rogue gallery. According to their inside source:
"Many, if not most, members of Batman's rogue's gallery will be making appearances in the film. 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. According to my sources Affleck and Geoff Johns, who has been working with him on the film, want to make the definitive Batman film. They want to tell the ultimate Batman story, and to do so they're going to bring in all the big guns. They're going to have a big, sprawling Bat universe already in place."
Damn! It should be interesting to see how all of these villains are actually utilized. When we meet Batman for the first time in this universe in Dawn of Justice, Batman is worn battered from already battling villainous insanity in Gotham City. Will these villains come back to haunt him in some way in the new movie? I can't help but think that most of them are in Arkham Asylum. These villains could just be cameos, but if Affleck and the studio are looking to really play with all of these villains, maybe this could be some kind of loose adaptation of the video game Batman: Arkham Asylum, which follows the Dark Knight as he battles The Joker and a ton of other villains when they seize control of the forensic mental hospital. That's just speculation on my part, but it's a great way for them to utilize all of these villainous characters in some way.
One thing is for sure, if these villains are going to be more than just cameos, Affleck and his team really need to find a way to balance all of them in a way that works. If they can actually pull that off... awesome! At the same time, this makes me think that the studio is looking to go as big as they can with Affleck as Batman before Affleck finally says he's had enough, which could happen at any time. Personally, I'd much rather see Batman and his villains built up over the course of several movies instead of throwing all of them into one film.
There's no official confirmation of this, so as of right now we will treat it as a rumor. But for conversation's sake, what do you think about the possibility? Would you rather see an Arkham Asylum-type Batman movie where all the villains play a solid role in the story or would you rather the villains just show up in cameos?