Once upon a time, back when there was still hope that Justice League could pull the DC Movie Universe out of its nose-dive, Ben Affleck was lined up to star, co-write, and direct his own solo Batman movie.
Plot details were thin on the ground, but a new interview reveals that it was heading towards the plot of one of the greatest video games of all time: Arkham Asylum.
Three-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson (he won from JFK, The Aviator, and Hugo, and was nominated SIX more times) was chatting to the HappySadConfused podcast about his work on Tarantino's new movie Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, when the conversation turned to cancelled projects.
"I wanted to shoot Batman with Ben [Affleck] cause that was the next film we had," Richardson confirmed. "There was a script, but not a loved script. There was a lot of work he was doing to it to change it.
"He was going into the more insanity aspects… He was entering more into the Arkham, he’s going into where everyone was bad.
"[Arkham Asylum] is where we were going. I was very interested in that one."
For those who don't know, the plot of the Arkham Asylum game finds Batman venturing into Gotham's infamous mental institution, which is packed out with all of Batman's most feared villains, only for the Joker to take over and lock down the entire building, and release every inmate all at once.
Of course, we now know that following the critical slamming that both Batman V Superman and Justice League received, that all fell away, with Robert Pattinson now taking on the cowl, and Affleck is moving on to star and direct in WWII drama Ghost Army.
Matt Reeves is so far the only other confirmed name with the new project, filling the director's chair thanks to his own recent successes (Cloverfield, War For The Planet Of The Apes), and he'll be delivering us The Batman on 25 June 2021.
Meanwhile, Vanessa Kirby (Hobbs & Shaw, Mission: Impossible - Fallout, The Crown) is apparently in the running to play Catwoman, and JOE recently sat down with the actress to discuss those rumours, and how she feels about R-Pattz as the new dark knight...
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