Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom should have its fair share of recognizable heroes, but the Dark Knight probably won’t be one of them. As part of a new story about Warner Bros.’ quest to build a better Aquaman film, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that the new sequel from James Wan was originally supposed to include either Michael Keaton or Ben Affleck as Batman, but both ideas have been scrapped under the wishes of James Gunn and Peter Safran, the duo that now runs DC Studios. “[They] do not want to promise a movie universe that will not come to fruition, nor tie it down excessively to past failures,” the publication writes. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom has already undergone multiple reshoots following what has been described as “uninspiring” test screenings.
Hamada wanted Michael Keaton’s version of the character to be akin to Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury in the Marvel movies — an elder statesman who could pop up in various films, including the now-shelved Batgirl, as well as The Lost Kingdom. But shifting release dates muddled things. At one point, The Lost Kingdom was set to open in March 2023, several months before Keaton’s return in June 2023’s The Flash. So in late July 2022, two months after Abdy and De Luca took over Warners, Ben Affleck joined a round of reshoots as Bruce Wayne, to replace a scene Keaton shot. But then the movie was moved again, this time to after Flash, putting Affleck’s appearance in question. The latest cut of the film features neither version of the Dark Knight, according to sources, as new DC heads James Gunn and Peter Safran do not want to promise a movie universe that will not come to fruition, nor tie it down excessively to past failures. “It was pretty chaotic,” said one source.