Well Now, Ben Affleck May Not Even Make A Batman Movie, How About That?

Ben Affleck has a new movie entitled Live By Night opening in wide release next weekend, so naturally, all of the press interviews he's done for the movie concern reporters asking him question about why he chose to tell a story like Live By Night that is set in the Prohibition era, how he's grown as a director over the past decade and maybe his thoughts on the bigger picture of cinema in the world in 2016. Nah, just messing with ya, everyone's been asking him about that stand-alone Batman he's set to star in and direct. Previously, Affleck himself had said conflicting reports about the status the movie; he recently said it was aiming to start filming in the Spring (something actor Joe Manganiello backed up) while other times it was still in the development phase. 

Now he's saying the proposed project isn't a done deal, telling The Guardian "....it's not a set thing and there's no script. If it doesn't come together in a way that I think is really great, I'm not going to do it." I wouldn't take that as a doomsday sentence for the gestating film, but it does sound like he's more...weary, I guess, than he has in other recent discussions about the film. To keep things optimistic, he sounds like he wants to do this right and he may be butting heads with the folks over at Warner Bros., who have made it very clear they want a new Batman movie out in the summer of 

2018.

Of course, the entire DC Extended Universe seems to be in a state of disarray right now, so it wouldn't be shocking if even the Ben Affleck Batman movie was getting caught up in all the mayhem. Seriously, after the divisive (at best) reception that greeted Batman v. Superman and Suicide Squad, every movie that isn't (of all things) James Wan's Aquaman film is going out the window. Suicide Squad 2 is almost certainly getting replaced by that Gotham City Sirens movie. The Flash lost its director two months ago and there's been nary a peep about the film since then. Considering all the chaos that's swirling around the DCEU right now, is it any wonder Ben Affleck may be apprehensive about taking on this specific movie in such a major capacity? We shall see if any more illuminating information bubbles to the surface regarding this Batman movie and the DCEU as a whole in the coming initial weeks of 2017.