The Batman: 8 Reasons You Should Be Concerned Affleck Quit

Obviously, it is foolish to look backwards too much (particularly when the DCEU is already hurtling forwards irresistibly), but there is a reason Chris Nolan's Batman films are remembered so fondly. They gave new life to a franchise lost in a silly, campy wilderness and while they were far from comic book movies, they were lucrative, beloved and restorative.

They also left the way open for more in the same style, which is why the likes of David Fincher and Ben Affleck were initially called for when Nolan decided to walk away.

Directors of their ilk would surely take the great idea of Nolan's work and not try to reinvent the wheel? That way both fans and Warner Bros could benefit from retaining the core but allowing for progression. Okay, so the decision to work on a DCEU instead made things somewhat problematic, but it absolutely could still work to have one visual identity in the stand-alone films and one in the ensembles (look at Thor and the Avengers films for instance).

Affleck now leaving makes it unlikely at best that we're going to get a new solo Batman that looks anything like the Dark Knight trilogy. And while it was perhaps a slim chance anyway, this makes it all the more likely we'll see a Batman that fits more closely with the vision established already in Batman v Superman and Man Of Steel. And that's a lot harder to get excited about.