It's been more than two years since DC Studios announced its "Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters" DCU slate. Many of those projects have since stalled, and we're currently no closer to learning who will play Batman in The Brave and the Bold.
The Dark Knight had a blink-and-you'd-miss-it cameo in Creature Commandos, but work on his team-up with Robin isn't progressing as quickly as many fans would like. DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn has admitted to having a hard time figuring out the character, something likely not helped by Matt Reeves' (admittedly long-delayed) plans for The Batman Part II.
After all, how can he confidently get The Brave and the Bold into production when he has to compete with Reeves' plans? Comparisons are already inevitable, but those will come under even greater scrutiny if you have these movies coming out within a year or two of each other.
Simply put, it's a mess. However, a mixture of online rumours and fan speculation has left most convinced that we'll meet the DCU's Batman in Clayface next October before Gunn helms a World's Finest movie featuring the Caped Crusader and David Corenswet's Superman.
That would give Andy Muschietti a little more time to figure things out, but Gunn's latest Threads update appears to confirm that it's still the plan for us to meet the DCU's Batman for the first time in The Brave and the Bold.
It's a little disappointing, but we're bound to see Batman back on the big screen...eventually.
Interestingly, the filmmaker appeared to walk back on the idea that Batman has been operating in Gotham City for 15 years with another recent post, leading to renewed speculation that Robert Pattinson will retroactively become the DCU's Dark Knight. At this point, it's clear that DC Studios slate is fluid and not as planned out as first thought.
"Batman’s my biggest issue in all of DC right now, personally," the Superman director admitted in a recent interview. "And it’s not — I’m not writing Batman, but I am working with the writer of Batman and trying to get it right, because he’s incredibly important to DC, as is Wonder Woman."
"So outside of the stuff that I’m doing in the projects that are actively going, our two priorities are finishing our Wonder Woman and our Batman scripts," Gunn confirmed, saying that the movie is still titled The Brave and the Bold "right now."
"Batman has to have a reason for existing, right? So Batman can’t just be 'Oh, we’re making a Batman movie because Batman’s the biggest character in all of Warner Bros.,' which he is," he continued. "But because there’s a need for him in the DCU and a need that he’s not exactly the same as Matt’s Batman."
You can hear more from the filmmaker on that by clicking here.