The Batman: 8 Reasons You Should Be Concerned Affleck Quit

It's easy to read too much into "production" leaks, but it's also remarkably hard to avoid the old adage that there can be no smoke without fire. So, maybe we should start worrying a little more about the suggestions that the film isn't on schedule at all more generally: why isn't there a script set? Why has the production faltered? Why is the release date looking likely to be pushed back?

Should this - and Affleck's departure - all be taken as warning signs endemic in problematic productions? And more importantly, what the hell is causing them? Is there something amiss higher up? Could Warner Bros have taken their seizure of the reins on Suicide Squad as an indication of who should be in firm charge of their projects?

Perhaps that's why as recently as January 1st, he came out with the most confusing of statements, suggesting he wasn't even firmly attached to the project at all:

“It’s not a set thing and there’s no script. If it doesn’t come together in a way I think is really great I’m not going to do it.”

Why was he saying this years after being attached? After it was very clear he actually WAS firmly attached? Was there a fall out?

Maybe that's delving a little too much into the realms of fantasy (let's hope so), but this has been a strange production from day one. Despite being part of a shared universe, the film didn't come fully formed as an idea, which is strange enough, but then how do we reconcile the pictures released of Deathstroke (and the subsequent reel-back to suggest that it was just a screentest)? Am I the only one suspicious of how that changed?

That wasn't a screentest, it was a sizzle (or Affleck would never have released it). The fact that it came before a script, before a title and before any firm direction on the film now just looks ludicrous. What exactly is going on?