Ben Affleck’s Batman Can Hand His DCEU Title To Flash

Ben Affleck is confirmed as returning to the role of Batman in The Flash, where he can hand his DCEU title to The Flash. DC has big plans for the future, with Suicide Squad and Batman reboots on the horizon and the introduction of the DC multiverse in 2022’s Flash movie. Now, it’s been confirmed Ben Affleck will suit up as Batman once again for The Flash, allowing DC to give the actor’s version of the Dark Knight a proper send-off after the disappointing Justice League.

Helmed by IT and IT Chapter Two director Andy Muschietti, the Flash movie is shaping up to be a seminal entry in the DCEU canon. Alongside the return of Affleck’s Batman, the movie will also feature Michael Keaton, who is set to reprise his role as Batman from the original Tim Burton movies. The Flash also looks set to unite the entire DC movie multiverse for the first time, making every DC movie – past, present, and future – part of the same unified multiverse. Even among such monumental developments, there’s no doubt the return of the consistently divisive ‘Batfleck’ will be a big talking point.

Related: The Flash Can Make Ben Affleck The Batman He Was Meant To Be

There are theories that the movie will see Affleck’s Dark Knight killed off, which would seemingly make way for a new age of the DCEU and could mean Ezra Miller’s Flash becomes somewhat of a replacement for Batman. When the news of Affleck returning to the role of Batman in The Flash return emerged, Muschietti made clear the similarities between the two characters, pointing out that both Affleck’s Bruce Wayne and Miller’s Barry Allen “lost their mothers to murder”. The Flash will adapt the Flashpoint storyline from the comic books, where Barry Allen attempts to travel back in time to save his mother’s life, inadvertently arriving in an alternate reality. Of course, Batman famously lost his parents as a child in an alleyway mugging. This shared experience appears to be a big part of The Flash movie and hints at a potential passing of the torch from Affleck’s Batman to Miller’s Flash.

The handing over of the title in The Flash will likely see Allen becoming a kind of thematic replacement for Affleck’s Wayne within the DCEU going forward. Muschietti spoke about how the relationship between the two characters will “bring an emotional level that we haven’t seen before,” not only hinting at some serious bro bonding in the movie but also sounding like Bruce Wayne might not survive this particular outing. If Affleck’s Batman, who will likely take on a kind of mentor role in the movie, doesn’t make it out The Flash alive, Warner will have the perfect opportunity to give Miller’s Flash some much-needed depth by bringing his emotional experiences to the forefront – essentially using him to fill a thematic hole that could soon be left by Affleck’s presumed departure.

Whether ‘Batfleck’ lives or dies, it seems likely he won’t be donning the cape and cowl after the Flash movie – which will introduce multiple versions of DC characters. Rather than letting him peter out with the anti-climax that was Justice League and the behind-the-scenes struggles that caused him to drop out of his solo Batman movie, bringing him back for one last round would allow him to go out with a bang while making room for a new kind of DCEU going forward. Meanwhile, Miller’s Barry Allen has remained a somewhat underwhelming character in the DCEU thus far, with some fans even finding his wise-cracking demeanor grating. Giving his character some emotional depth, and positioning him as a thematic replacement for Batman will go a long way to legitimizing his character.

Of course, going forward Robert Pattinson looks set to be the primary Batman for the DCEU – though he’ll be one of three Batman versions. But while Pattinson’s Dark Knight looks set to exist in his self-contained noirish universe (at least for now) The Flash, rather than replacing the original DCEU Batman with a new version, appears to be gearing up to replace him with The Flash – at least thematically.

More: Flash Movie: Other DC Characters Flashpoint Should Bring Back