Jason Momoa says Ben Affleck is coming back to play Batman in Aquaman 2
Affleck, who's also showing up for The Flash, was reportedly spotted on the set of Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom by a Warner Bros. tour bus
Aux News Aquaman
Wonders never cease: First the triumphant return of Bennifer, and now Batfleck is primed to make an even bigger comeback to the DCEU than originally thought. THR reports tonight on an Instagram post from Aquaman star Jason Momoa, who announced—after it apparently got leaked during a studio tour that caught the actor on the film’s set—that Ben Affleck is reprising his role as Batman in the upcoming Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom.
Affleck hasn’t stepped into Bruce Wayne’s big fancy boots since 2017's Justice League, the filming of which he once described as “the worst experience”; in the intervening years (and after Affleck’s formal retirement from the part in 2019), Warner Bros. seemed to have moved on to different bat-portunities, enlisting Michael Keaton to return to the role for The Flash, and moving ahead on Matt Reeves’ adaptation of Bats’ early days, The Batman, with Robert Pattinson in the title role. In 2020, though, Affleck appeared to do a bit of an about-face, with news breaking that he’d be coming back to the cowl for Flash.
Momoa posted a pic of himself and Affleck apparently on the film’s set, along with a caption reading “REUNITED bruce and arthur.” (The top comment, meanwhile, is for some reason from Josh Brolin, who took time out of his human life to type out “Hahahahahaha” on his old friend Momoa’s post.) (Brolin posted a picture of himself with Momoa today, too, referencing him as “Aquaman”; the pair are real-life friends, so it might just be celebrity fun times, but it might also be an indicator that Brolin’s in the movie, too.)
Warner Bros. has been pretty tight-lipped about Aquaman 2, declining to show off any footage from the film, or even any of its stars, at this year’s Comic-Con. (That might make a little more sense now.) Directed once again by James Wan, it’s currently slated for a March 2023 release; the film previously got sucked into the horrifying vortex surrounding the Amber Heard – Johnny Depp defamation case, after reports that both Momoa and Wan pushed back against the studio to keep Heard in the film even after she became a touchstone for incessant and radioactive online hate.
Affleck previously played Batman in Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice, Justice League, and (briefly) in Suicide Squad.
27 Comments
THE BENAISSANCE CONTINUES
The Joss Whedon’s reshoots were the “worst experience” he’s had. You can pretty much tell, in the Snyder Cut he looks healthy and engaged. In the Whedon Cut he’s bloated and bored. Also, technically the last time he played Batman was for the Snyder Cut additional photography.
in the Snyder Cut he looks healthy and engaged.
the reshoots also coincided with Affleck’s divorce and alcoholism. Whedon probably didn’t help things, but that was probably an aspect he didn’t have much control over.
He looks healthy because he’s sober, it has nothing to do with Snyder – what a pathetic thing to say in order to totally invalidate his journey to sobriety to stan a right wing idiot.
yah seriously VWO can fuck off with that shitty toxic fanboy rhetoric.
I’m sure filming was a terrible experience for him, I’m sure everything was at the time, you can see it in his health from scene to scene and how healthy he looks at the tail end of the Snyder cut is great to see.But the two really aren’t connected in any way, at all.
So this means he’ll be in the mid-credits scene, probably saying something like “Turns out that guy wasn’t really the Flash, so I killed him.”
I thought he died on the way back to his home planet.
promises to be sleepier than ever, hopefully
Maybe Affleck is still hoping to garner an Oscar for acting.
He’s Jen-erating buzz.
No Paltrow paltry little parts for this guy.
It’s amazing they kept it secret as long as they did.I guess nothing escaped the “horrifying vortex surrounding the Amber Heard”.
I hope he just keeps popping up in every DC movie, grumpier and grumpier, for a few minutes, until in 10 years he’s starring in the live action The Dark Knight Returns.
yeah yeah but will Dolph Lundren be back
Word was that Michael Keaton had shot a couple of scenes for the film, but once The Flash got delayed until after Aquaman 2 (Flash was gonna be before Aquaman 2 AND Shazam 2) logical guess is Affleck is shooting new scenes to replace Keaton’s, since his Batman hasn’t been introduced in this continuity yet.
Continuity and tight scripts isn’t really in DC’s wheelhouse so I’m not sure why any of that would be an issue.
There is no way they are replacing Keaton at this point after how apeshit the internet went over the new that he was returning.The Flash movie is a multiverse story, so it makes sense that Keaton and Affleck will both be Batman in it.
No, they are replacing Keaton in Aquaman because he has to be introduced in The Flash first, he will still be in The Flash, but with out Flash to establish Keaton, his showing up in Aquaman would make zero sense.
Gotcha. My mistake.
I just want to know what Frondi thinks about all this.
This confirms my theory. WB is shifting off the selling points for The Flash to it’s other projects. Michael Keaton is appearing in Batgirl before The Flash comes out and Ben Affleck seemed pretty determined that The Flash would be his last performance as Batman.
I see your Ezra Miller crisis backup plan WB 😉
I’m glad they didn’t show Aquaman 2 at comic-con. It would be pretty awkward for Marvel’s big trailer to feature Namor the Sub-Mariner followed by DC dropping Aquaman 2…. ummmm. I can’t be the only one that sees this similarity.
Could have been some good crossover memes tho.
“BATFLECK!”
Maybe they just pasted him into every scene that was supposed to have Amber Heard.
That’d be entertaining.
Hopefully they gave him a better wig.
Affleck is probably happy to put on the suit for a day or two of shooting once every few years, and DC is happy with casting all the Batmen. They can make solo movies with Pattinson, and alternate between Affleck and Keaton for cameos and supporting roles. The lack of continuity or logic in the DCEU is becoming its primary differentiator from the MCU, and it’s kind of fun to see a collection of setups that never pay off, with roles constantly recast and storylines constantly abandoned.