The Batman has already reared its head several times to the media with its interesting development. Replacements, Ben Affleck’s heavy changes, test footage of Deathstroke, the much exaggerated rumors that media is unable to make up their minds. The stories go on. No one is really certain.
The “what if” history is always one that fascinates us fans.
With that, a tidbit of information might have given us an idea what kind of atmosphere we’d have been looking at.
Film reporter and rumor intelligence Umberto Gonzalez of The Wrap made a tweet yesterday afternoon that identified a specific David Fincher film that was actually the source used for the original screenplay by Ben Affleck himself:
…THE GAME also was the inspiration for the previous THE BATMAN script before Matt Reeves started over. https://t.co/nKYvQ3fMkL
— Umberto Gonzalez (@elmayimbe) September 12, 2017
The Game, starring Michael Douglas and Sean Penn, is a mystery thriller where Douglas’s character is involved in participation of a game that reflects to his daily life, splitting the reality and the game to a point of uncertainty and conspiracy.
From the sound of it, it would feature a more detective-focused Batman, which has interestingly only been shown briefly in most films of his “World’s Greatest Detective” skillset. The tone would have made to be exactly that: a mystery thriller. Christopher Nolan himself based The Dark Knight off the crime heist film Heat, which we can certainly see the similarities with.
And with Joe Manganiello himself liking this tweet, someone who was (and may still be) involved in the production, it does raise a hint of truth.
So where does that leave us now?
Reeves himself has made it clear that he’ll be bringing a “noir driven, detective version of Batman”. It seems something may be incorporated with Affleck’s vision after all. With that accounted for, not much can really be said for the future of The Batman. We’ll just have to wait for further news.