The Batman Is Headed For A Completely "Fresh Start" (And 2019 Release)
Could Ben Affleck still leave as Batman?
What has become immediately obvious since Ben Affleck jumped ship from directing The Batman is that the film will not be what was originally planned. Since then, it has been confirmed that the script that Affleck had been agonising over - with the help of DC comics supremo Geoff Johns (who surely should have been able to write a good script for the Dark Knight) - has been rewritten by Chris Terrio, and now it looks like it might undergo another rewrite.
Warner Bros are apparently already talking to potential film-makers about coming in as director (and Mark Hughes at Forbes says Matt Reeves remains the favourite) and it sounds like the project will get an entirely fresh start once a new creative team has been hired.
This might be good news for a stuttering project, but it definitely throws some anxiety at Ben Affleck's continued presence as Bruce Wayne. He might have already said he is committed to staying on, but as Hughes states, whether he will remain committed while the project goes through its revolution remains to be seen. If the rumours that he was frustrated by the lack of time he had to make Live By Night as he wanted because of the demands of DC's schedule, you have to wonder how happy he'd be to continue to sit around unable to move ahead on other projects.
Nobody should judge Affleck if he does choose to move on, and you have to wonder whether a fresh creative team would even want him still there. He'd be a hangover of an effectively dead project, and while the DCEU will still be going ahead, it can without Affleck, and it's beginning to feel like it should for both parties.
Without wanting to propel into the territories of conspiracy theories, it feels like something is broken with the project, and maybe wiping clean entirely is the right way forward? Maybe we won't have a choice in a couple of months...
The way it looks currently, Affleck will have to give over more time to helping develop the rewritten project, even if he's only involved as actor and producer (remember his statement included talk of teaming up with the new director). That would realistically require him to step away from any other projects he has planned, and whether he'd be happy to do that when Live By Night underwhelmed remains to be seen. He's been in a position where he's had to claw back his reputation before, and doing it when he's made films like Argo, Gone Baby Gone and The Town seems implausible. But Hollywood is cruel and sitting on a loser breeds negativity in commentary.
Mark Hughes seems to suggest that the rewrites on The Batman will be hefty, and that is going to take its toll. And a slow approach is both what the project probably needs after so much negative press has grown out of the revelations that they've already rewritten once, lost a director and plan a whole new creative approach, and what might make it impossible for Affleck to continue as lead actor.
July 2019 is being talked about as the likely release date, which still gives them quite some time to work on a script (and almost enough time to replace Affleck if he goes), and it definitely feels like haste would be a mistake. After all, 2019 will mark the 80th anniversary of Batman's debut in Detective Comics, and it would be good to have a project that celebrates the fact, rather than one that was born out of difficulty and haste.
Right now, Warner Bros need to concentrate on getting their new director, their new writer and their new film sorted, and then they need to decide pretty quickly how much they want Ben Affleck to be their lead. Because that might well take a lot more work than it initially seemed.