𝘉𝘦𝘯 𝘈𝘧𝘧𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘬’𝘴 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘽𝙖𝙩𝙢𝙖𝙣 ~ 𝘈𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘺𝘴𝘪𝘴/𝘐𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘨𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥

Before I begin, everything here is based off of remnants and rumors that line up with confirmed plot details.

The rest’s up to our imagination.

Before I get to the good stuff...

People tend to forget how good Ben Affleck really is as a filmmaker.

Affleck really excels at writing characters with moral flaws with very tragic upbringings.

Sound familiar?

The same year Ben Affleck was cast as Batman was the same year he swept the awards for Argo.

At the time, he was sought after for many tentpoles as director like Star Wars: The Force Awakens and the earliest version of Justice League.

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My guess is Ben Affleck starring as Batman was a package deal so he’d be able to direct as well.

This was confirmed by Zack Snyder.

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It went a step further when Matt Damon confirmed Ben was even involved in BvS more than just an actor.

He brought on his Argo screenwriter, Chris Terrio, to write the script for BvS.

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He even took a step further and became an "executive producer" on Justice League to oversee scenes with his Batman and to lay seeds for his film.

The villain was confirmed to be none other than Deathstroke. https://twitter.com/benaffleck/status/770259217940746245

Robert Richardson (Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Shutter Island) was all set to shoot the film.

He had worked with Ben prior on Live By Night (2017).

Affleck likely oversaw the casting of JK Simmons as Gordon, who was confirmed to be in The Batman before Justice League was released.

Funny enough, when Affleck and Johns were working on the script, a producer googled "Deathstroke" and found fan-art of Joe Manganiello as Slade Wilson which led to a meeting of with him and Ben to him getting cast.

Ben described Deathstroke as a genuine “counterpart” to Batman.

Speaking of casting and related to Slade Wilson...

John Cleese was heavily rumored to being in the film at the time, and to even teasing it very slickly to social media.

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John Cleese was rumored to playing William Wintergreen, an associate and comrade to Slade Wilson.

Potentially a mirrored Alfred to Manganiello’s Deathstroke.

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It’s very possible Cleese was the one driving Slade to Lex’s yacht at the end of Justice League (2017).

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Ben further expressed admiration for Slade Wilson.

Joe Manganiello said he talked with Ben about exploring Slade’s psychology as well.

Now onto the REALLY good stuff.

The film was going to feature prominently around Arkham Asylum. https://www.gq.com/story/ben-affleck-batman-arkham-asylum

The film was going to begin with a prison breakout in Arkham Asylum, essentially allowing all the prisoners to be let loose by Deathstroke, and then expand the story to encompass all of Gotham City.

Not sure if true, but I remember reading a plot details saying that Deathstroke would essentially go around killing Batman villains spread over Gotham.

And leaving traps for Batman around the city.

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This script was said to be inspired by David Fincher's The Game (1997).

"where Deathstroke is setting up all these traps and beating the crap out of [Batman],”

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(This is worth pointing out.)

Affleck worked with Fincher I’m Gone Girl (2014) and I vividly remember Ben saying that he was taking a lot of cues as a filmmaker working with David.

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This was seemingly confirmed by Joe himself. https://twitter.com/JoeManganiello/status/909846178908565506?s=20

Batman was going to go back to Arkham for a majority of the film, probably around the third act.

My guess? He’d have to stop Slade from killing a certain clown.

The plot reminded me of slight elements of Batman: Knightfall crossed with Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Robert Richardson talked about exploring Bruce’s “insanity” and the exploration of Arkham Asylum.

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Personally, I really liked the idea of the idea of Deathstroke being a Batman villain. I can see why others weren’t a fan, but you have to realize that this Batman has faced everyone. Using someone like Riddler or Two-Face isn’t that much of a challenge for a Batman who

had faced up against aliens and... Superman himself. You’d have to get a villain that would pose a physical challenge and a mental one for this Batman.

And it would address Batman’s brutality in BvS with Deathstroke encompassing what Batman was becoming. It seemed smart.

A Washington Post reporter described it as this. Giving a hint at the plot and direction for Affleck’s script. https://twitter.com/adcfanboy/status/1128307687454908418

Jay Olivia gushed about it heavily, calling it the best Batman script he’d read, despite popular word saying it wasn’t.

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There’s a common misconception that Ben was signing on for some sort of Batman trilogy— but that was not true. Affleck signed on for ONE Batman movie, that would have directly tied with Zack’s arc that would end in JL3.

His arc was through BvS, JL, The Batman, JL2 and JL3.

At this point, I’m going to get into the aftermath of what happened when and possibly why Ben left and PURE speculation on my part.

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Rumors and speculation pointed to Affleck colliding with Geoff Johns on the story, which was instrumental in his departure.

Not sure if true but I find it strange that Ben brought on Chris Terrio to do a whole rewrite on Johns’s script a week before walking.

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Terrio and Johns collided on Justice League when Johns was writing Terrio’s script on the fly. It’s possible Johns wasn’t happy with Terrio working on Batman with Ben.

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Now we know when Ben walked as director, he also walked as Batman. But regardless, he was still contractually obligated to still play Batman in a film. And they could have very well used his script, like he is doing with Ridley Scott in The Last Duel.

I think there’s more

that meets the eye.

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This is speculation on my part and may be of use to debate but there was a very strong possible and possibly confirmed rumor that Zack Snyder was fired from WB when he aired cut a 2 hour cut of Justice League in February of 2017.

It's very possible