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Ben Affleck's Batman movie being scrapped is one of the most disappointing aspects of the DCU (formerly DCEU). Affleck was a great Batman, but never got his time to shine in a solo film. However, a new report sheds light on what that film would have explored.
Inverse published an extensive feature on the scrapped DCU project with one storyboard artist, Jay Oliva, who had extremely high praise for Affleck's Batman film.
“I can't really say too much other than it was f**king awesome,” he said. “It was the best. It was amazing.”
Oliva played a pivotal role at DC in their storyboard department — so he has extensive knowledge about the inner workings of the DCU. However, he was brought on to Affleck's Batman film once it was in development.
“From my understanding, there were a couple of drafts of it,” Oliva revealed. “When I was brought on, I don't know whether it was the second draft or something, but it was what Geoff Johns and Ben [Affleck] had shown me.”
Tiptoeing around specifics, Oliva said, “I've worked on a lot of Batman things and what was really cool about it was, it was tying together a lot of really cool Batman storylines that had never been really explored.”
Supposedly, this meant that “80 years” of Batman mythos were to be explored. “Ben's story was gonna cover something that had never really been covered in comics but was building off of storylines in the Batman mythos over the last 80 years and approaching it from a new kind of perspective,” Oliva said.
He continued praising it: “It was very clever and there were a lot of things about it that I really loved that I wish that had come to fruition,” he said. “It was a really great project in the beginning. Ben had to step away for personal reasons, and I totally understood, but the time that I spent with Ben working on the project was fantastic.”
He concluded, “Maybe someday I can spill the beans, but I still can't talk about it.”
Ben Affleck would move on from the DCU (albeit with a role in the Justice League director's cut and a cameo in The Flash) and never got his solo Batman film. Robert Pattinson has since taken on the mantle in Matt Reeves' film universe. Meanwhile, Affleck has rediscovered his roots and has given stellar performances in The Way Back, The Tender Bar, and Air.
