It was always going to be the case that Warner Bros. would look to bring Batman back as soon as possible. Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy had dominated the cultural landscape for close to a decade, and while any successor was always going to have a hard time under the cowl and living up to the vision of that saga, WB didn't make life any easier for their chosen candidate.
While it's equally true that Affleck hasn't done nearly enough to assert his Bat-credentials, introducing him in an overinflated comic crossover just wasn't the way to do it. The Dark Knight Rises was barely four years old, and thrusting the Caped Crusader into the mix so early on felt like a cynical measure by a studio lacking confidence in their own burgeoning franchise.
Batman sells - of course he does - but so does the idea of Batman. Much like The Force Awakens delayed the arrival of Luke Skywalker, Snyder et al. could've quite easily saved Bruce Wayne for another day, placing him centrally to the wider narrative of the DCEU whilst affording these newer heroes space to grow and develop into fan-favourite characters.
Instead, we got Batman v Superman, which managed to aggravate fans on both sides of the Bat/Supes divide for a myriad of different reasons.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
