Jon Hamm’s become one of the internet’s top picks to replace Ben Affleck as Batman in the DC movie universe. The best part is that the Mad Men star’s a confessed fan of the Dark Knight and has said on several occasions now that he’d be interested in donning the cowl in the future.
This weekend, Hamm attended New York Comic Con as part of the panel for Amazon’s Good Omens, the supernatural comedy-drama from Neil Gaiman in which he plays the angel Gabriel alongside an all-star cast including Michael Sheen as the angel Aziraphale and David Tennant as the demon Crowley.
Once the panel got to the Q&A section, naturally the topic of Batman came up. One fan asked a two-part question, beginning with a comment about the difficulty of adapting comics and graphic novels while the second part consisted of directly asking Hamm “do you want to play the Batman?”
Neil Gaiman then piped up to say: “The first rule of playing Batman, is not to talk about playing Batman.”
After a laugh from the crowd, Hamm decided to address it. “But I will answer your question.” After a moment, he added: “Comics are hard but graphic novels are the hardest.”
Again, the audience erupted with laughter, which was broken when David Tennant said “but how great would Jon as Batman be?” The comment caused a lot of cheers, of course, which Tennant fueled again by pointing at Hamm and saying “Batman.”
Later on, the group were asked which superpowers they’d have and Gaiman and Hamm agreed that they wanted stretching and squishing powers a la Mr. Fantastic. Hamm, meanwhile, joked: “Stretchy and Squishy, Coming in 2019.” This caused Gaiman to add: “Who needs Batman?”
Despite Hamm’s enthusiasm for portraying the Caped Crusader, nothing official’s come through as yet, with the actor himself even saying he’s never talked with Warner Bros. about it. In fact, reports tell us that director Matt Reeves is looking to cast a much younger Batman in his upcoming effort. But hey, maybe he’ll change his mind when he realizes the fan support for Bat-Hamm.
