The Flash originally ended with Barry Allen returning to his own timeline, only to discover that Michael Keaton's Batman and Sasha Calle's Supergirl were now part of his world. That explains how the former was going to return in Batgirl, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, Batman Beyond, not to mention an eventual Crisis on Infinite Earths movie.
Keaton, however, now looks set to be a one-and-done as his original big screen Batman because DC Studios is moving on from the DCEU and rebooting it as the DCU.
As a result, those original plans have gone out of the window, and Grace Randolph (yes, we know...) recently claimed that Keaton, Calle, and all the big teases added last year - including Henry Cavill's Superman cameo - have been scrapped.
The decision was made by James Gunn and Peter Safran and arguably makes sense with a reboot on the horizon; why tease fans with actors and characters they'll never see again? In fact, it sounds like The Flash ends on a deliberately ambiguous note, returning home to a world that may be the DCEU, DCU, or something else altogether.
Having mastered the ability to travel through the Multiverse, it's said the Scarlet Speedster will cross paths with a character from the past; could it be Christian Bale's Batman or even a CG Christopher Reeve as Superman? We'll have to wait and see, but we'd bet on the Fastest Man Alive eventually being recast for the DCU regardless of who he meets.
Oh, and for those of you doubting the validity of these claims, they have since been confirmed by The Wrap's Umberto Gonzalez.
Both Keaton and Ben Affleck will presumably be cut from the Aquaman sequel, and the whole situation sounds like a mess. However, while there's a lot of footage from these movies we'll never see, a fresh start is on the horizon with the DCU.
The Flash races into theaters on June 16.