Warner Brothers recently held a well-received screening of Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice for the crew and studio. Based on his performance as Batman/Bruce Wayne, it’s looking like Ben Affleck commitment to direct a stand-alone Batman film will be expanded to a trilogy.
Den of Geek is reporting that the deal is in progress, and that if it goes through, it’ll be a cornerstone of the company’s DC cinematic universe:
All told, this deal could see Affleck in the role of Batman for the next 10 years or so.
“Basically, Warners are now working their movie universe around Ben’s Batman,” our source says.
As far as Warner’s bosses are concerned, Affleck is considered to be the “definitive Batman” and could be the hub around which the DC movie universe will rotate in future movies.
Affleck has directed a number of critically-acclaimed movies, Gone Baby Gone (2007), The Town (2010) and Argo (2012), for which he earned an Academy Award for Best Movie and a Golden Globe for Best Director.
Affleck has already been tapped to direct a standalone Batman film, and will be directing another film, Live by Night, shortly.
What’s interesting out of this report is the pivot away from Superman as the centerpiece of DC’s universe: Batman v Superman was initially developed as a sequel to Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, before turning into something larger and more complex. This proposed trilogy of films will already be entering a crowded market of superhero films, just a couple of years after Christopher Nolan’s own Dark Knight trilogy.
After seeing Affleck’s skills behind the camera, it’ll be interesting to see how well he handles the Caped Crusader.