Confirmation that the Zack Snyder cut of Justice League is heading to HBO Max opened up a host of questions about the future of the DCEU, and one of the most burning of all concerns the involvement of Ben Affleck as Batman. Rumors that the Gone Girl star will return to shoot new scenes and complete his character arc started circling when the project was announced, but they were seemingly shot down on Twitter earlier this month by Heroic Hollywood’s Umberto Gonzalez.
However, that doesn’t appear to be the end of the speculation as the leaker who originally broke the Batfleck news – Taylor Murphy at The Cultured Nerd – is vehemently standing by his claims and has presented apparent evidence backing up the legitimacy of his sources.
During an appearance on the LightCast Podcast, Murphy insisted that his intel on Affleck is accurate and confirmed that it came from members of his family who work at Warner Bros. He even produced photographs to evidence this, one of which showed a relative of his at the DC offices, although the individual’s face was censored by the Cultured Nerd logo to protect their identity.
Murphy is adamant that his original claims about Affleck agreeing a deal to return as Batman have been cross-checked and corroborated, saying:
“Ben Affleck has reportedly signed a contract and we talked about how we had a couple [of] other people, a couple of our sources, who said, ‘Hey, it happened, he signed,’ and we’re like, ‘Okay. Cool,’ and we’ll check with a few more people and then we checked with a couple more people, a couple [of] prominent Instagram accounts.”
Although there’s some doubt about the accuracy of the Batfleck rumor due to Heroic Hollywood’s rebuttal, Murphy’s reiterated claims should not be dismissed offhand. The tipster’s family are said to have a long history of working at Warner and the studio is known to be a leaky ship on occasion, with word of the Snyder Cut heading to HBO Max hitting the net before it was made official.
If the reports are true and Affleck has indeed entered a contract to reprise his role, it begs the question of whether this is purely to film new scenes for the Snyder Cut, or to complete his character’s arc across multiple movies. With Robert Pattinson’s The Batman said to be entirely separate from the DCEU and Warner seemingly keen to build a multiverse, there’s certainly room for two caped crusaders in the franchise.
In any case, we’ll likely find out who’s right about Batfleck next month when further details about the new Justice League cut are revealed at DC FanDome.
