Glen Powell (The Running Man, Top Gun: Maverick) has been a popular fan pick to play the DCU's Batman for a while now, and a new report from Jeff Sneider has reignited speculation that he could be in contention to land the role.
Sneider has heard that Powell "has been in talks with DC about a big role that requires a major commitment/multiple options."
Many fans have jumped straight to Bruce Wayne, but there are obviously plenty of other possibilities. Following the recent news that DC Studios is developing a new John Constantine movie, Sneider seems to feel that the titular Hellblazer is a more likely candidate.
Fans noticed that Powell started following DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn and The Brave and The Bold director Andy Muschietti (assuming he's still attached) on Instagram last year, leading some to wonder whether he could be in the running to suit up as the Caped Crusader in the upcoming DCU movie.
Despite previously stating that he wasn't particularly interested in playing a superhero, Powell did say that he was "always a Batman guy" in a recent interview.
"I would have a wild take on Batman," he told GQ. "It definitely would not be like a Matt Reeves tone - it’d probably be closer to Keaton."
Though he didn't share the screen with Batman (Christian Bale) himself, Powell actually had a small role in The Dark Knight Rises as a Wall Street broker who gets on the wrong side of Tom Hardy's Bane.
Gunn has previously confirmed that creative plans for Batman have changed since we first learned that a new take on the iconic hero would make his debut in The Brave and the Bold.
Fans suspected as much, anyway, since Gunn has previously admitted that he was finding it difficult to come up with a satisfactory way of introducing a brand-new big-screen Dark Knight to the burgeoning shared universe.
A user recently asked the Superman director the following on Threads: “James, have the plans for DCU Batman changed creatively in some way since the 2023 announcement of The Brave and the Bold?” Gunn replied with a brief, “Yep.”
This obviously doesn't give us much to go on, and could mean any number of things. Will Batman still debut in The Brave and the Bold, or could it be sooner? Have Gunn and Peter Safran decided to make Robert Pattinson's The Batman the DCU's Caped Crusader after all?
The latter seems unlikely, but with the recent delays, there's a chance Gunn and co. have rethought their approach to Matt Reeves' "Elseworlds" films.
Peter Safran was asked about DC's "duelling Batmans" during an interview with IGN, and assured fans that Reeves recently pausing production to deal with a personal issue will not result in the sequel being shelved.
"We've got Batman: Part Two and [the animated film] Dynamic Duo in 2028. Listen, I couldn't be more excited about the plans that we have over the next five years and, obviously, a lot of them, we're just not able to talk about yet, but I think you're never going to please everybody, but I have a feeling that people are going to be excited about what we have coming up. And, again, Batman: Part Two, everybody's aware of the issues we're having right now, but, what we've seen so far of the shoot, it looked absolutely fantastic and Matt Reeves is a supremely talented filmmaker. Dynamic Duo is, for my money, as original today as Pixar was when they did Toy Story so we're really excited about that. Obviously, Man of Tomorrow's in post [production] right now."