We Could Get Ben Affleck's Batman Movie As Early As March 2018!

We've been writing about Ben Affleck's Batman movie for so long that I (and a few others at WhatCulture) have developed an irrational, ingrained hatred of having to write the phrase "Ben Affleck's Batman movie" over and over. Can't Warner Bros. just come out and officially call it The Batman? Well, it looks like our days of suffering may be over sooner than we thought.

Company CEO Jeff Bewkes said (talking at the 25th Annual Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference, reported by The Suicide Squadcast) that things are moving ahead with that as yet unplaced project, stating we could get it by early 2018:

"Ben announced a Batman movie [that] he’s going to direct, star, write for – I think it’s a year and a half out. So, the strategy worked."

Year and a half? I've had The Batman (f*ck it, that's what I'm calling it until I'm told otherwise) pegged as a 2019 release by sheer nature of how chock-a-block the DCEU slate is. However, with every movie post Justice League in a similar state, suggesting potential flux, I can see it happening, especially as the film is emerging as the next movie (after BvS and Suicide Squad) as the "movie that will save the universe". And, hey, who isn't excited about the director of Gone Baby Gone, Argo and The Town, and proven Dark Knight taking on the Caped Crusader?

Of course, this is all projected and there's no guarantee that the moment a movie's done it'll be pushed out; this project screams studio reward (for Argo's Oscar win) and thus won't have the same rigid production as some other DC movies (*cough* Justice League *cough*), so it may come later. Still, it's sooner than expected.

Excited for Ben Affleck's Batman movie (urgh)? Think it should come now or should the DCEU mature first? Have your say down in the comments.