Ben Affleck Is In Talks To Direct A Feature For DC

The topsy-turvy world of DC got a major jolt today as a ton of late-night news broke about the pending new DC slate proposed by recently hired head honchos James Gunn and Peter Safran. First, we heard that Gunn is writing the new "Superman" movie and confirmed that Henry Cavill is not returning, which maybe came as a blow to die-hard DCEU fans, but every indicator so far is that Gunn and Safran have been tasked with completely rebooting the whole DC approach. That naturally will mean a fresh start for the iconic characters that anchor the DC brand.

But what about Batman? That's a whole can of worms at DC right now. Before the new leaders came in there was the Matt Reeves/Robert Pattinson "The Batman" which had no relation to the universe shown in Todd Phillips' "Joker" (or his currently-filming sequel), and neither of them cross over with the Ben Affleck Batman.

As part of the big DC news dump, Variety also mentioned that Ben Affleck recently met with Gunn and Safran and that in that meeting they toyed with the idea of Affleck returning to the DC universe ... this time behind the camera. Gunn added to that via his Twitter account, stating "he wants to direct and we want him to direct; we just have to find the right project."

Affleck's time as Batman might be over, but he'd be a great DC director

Using context clues I'd say that means his time as Batman is just as done as Henry Cavill's time as Superman, the difference being that Ben Affleck might just come back to direct a DC superhero movie.

This isn't the first time he was planning on directing a DC film. The Academy Award winner was also in place to direct his own standalone Batman movie, which he described as focusing on the "world's greatest detective" side of The Batman. He ultimately couldn't find a script he was happy with and ended up passing the reins over to Matt Reeves who did his own version of that as a total spinoff from the established DCEU.

Affleck is a pretty phenomenal director. "Argo," "Gone Baby Gone," and "The Town" all stand out as the work of a confident storyteller who knows how to focus on the character first. 

As far as the "right project" goes, it does sound like Gunn really wants to get Affleck in there, so he knows how much of a win that'd be for the new and improved DC cinematic universe. What could that right project be? How crazy would it be if Affleck got to direct his Batman movie after all, just without having to don the cowl as well?

It's a time of change for the DCEU. We don't know whether or not that change will be for the better or the worse, but it's clear that Gunn and Safran aim to disrupt the DC status quo. However it turns out, it's an exciting time.