Zack Snyder celebrated the Batman Day on social media by honoring his beloved on-screen Batman, Ben Affleck who will now be seen again in the upcoming film Justice League. It was quite a natural choice since Snyder is the person who created Affleck’s adaptation of Batman through the 2016 blockbuster, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice and you can’t argue much against it.
There are three camps which divide Batman fans: the Michael Keaton camp supporting his work in Tim Burton’s 1989 film Batman and 1992 sequel Batman Returns: the Christian Bale camp that loves his portrayal of the Dark Knight in the hard-hitting The Dark Knight trilogy directed by Christopher Nolan and the Ben Affleck camp for his current portrayals of the iconic caped crusader as seen in Batman V Superman and also as a cameo in Suicide Squad. Apart from these, there is another lesser known option of Kevin Conroy who has voiced various versions of Batman animation.
Zack Snyder’s post on Vero commemorating the Batman Day made it absolutely clear that his loyalties are to the Affleck camp. Have a look at his post’s screenshot below:
Batman V Superman received a lot of flak for its flawed screenplay, characterization and a loud performance as Lex Luthor by Jesse Eisenberg as well as the near absence of the fight that was suggested by the title. In fact, a lot of fans consider it to be the lamest movie out of all nine live-action Batman films that have been released till date.
Despite that, there are some positives too. One of them is the way Gal Gadot played the Wonder Woman and the other is the brilliant work done by Affleck as Batman. It is agreed that the character didn’t get the kind of depth that was desirable, Affleck completely owned it. His version of Batman was a stark difference to whatever we have seen before it. The burden of past pain that included the murder of one of his proteges by The Joker had him deeply scarred. Viewers related to the character only because of Affleck’s emotional portrayal and the subtle variations that he brought in.
Affleck’s DCEU future has been uncertain ever since Suicide Squad released. There have been several reports and rumors about Affleck and DCEU. He was initially reported to be the writer, director and the lead actor in The Batman solo movie. Later he gave up the writing and direction duties citing personal reasons, and this led to the rumors about him exiting the Batman world altogether.
However, those rumors are now proven baseless with the arrival of director Matt Reeves (Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the Apes). Reeves has confirmed that he will be performing the writing and direction duties while Affleck has assured that he will reprise his role as the protector of Gotham city. During the San Diego Comic Con, Affleck quashed rumors about exiting the Batman and expressed his excitement about reprising the role in Reeves’ film.
No matter what changes the Batman plans witness within DCEU, let’s enjoy the Batman Day by watching Batman V Supermanand various other Batman movies that released before it.
