This week sees the release of Captain America: Civil War, which has already received plenty of advance critical praise. That's led to a lot of positive buzz about Marvel's future slate of movies. But we're also hearing rumblings about upcoming DC projects.
Let's start with Ben Affleck as Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, in Zack Snyder's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Affleck's casting raised a lot of eyebrows when it was announced, but the veteran actor turned in a truly praiseworthy performance as an aged hero who is initially motivated by anger, disgust and a bit of self-loathing. Even those who didn't particularly enjoy the movie agreed that Affleck's Batman was the best thing in it.
That raised anticipation for the long-rumored solo Batman movie, which was finally confirmed last month and instantly sparked further speculation. The latest round of rumors was kicked off by Birth.Movies.Death, which reported that multiple villains will be featured in the movie.
Reportedly, Affleck and Geoff Johns, who has been working with Affleck on the movie, "want to make the definitive Batman film. They want to tell the ultimate Batman story, and to do so they're going to bring in all the big guns. They're going to have a big, sprawling Bat universe already in place." The idea is to create "a lot of interesting possibilities for future films."
It makes sense for the DC superhero movies to be distinctive from the Marvel blockbusters and certainly one way to do that is to load up the movies with multiple characters and see who gets the best reaction from audiences. That seems to have been one of the ideas behind Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice -- Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) definitely jumped out from the crowd -- and may be the same guiding principle behind Suicide Squad, which already looks to be a mainstream breakout for Margot Robbie, the very talented actress who plays Harley Quinn.
Now, considering that Affleck is currently busy filming Justice League - Part One, to be followed by Justice League - Part Two, and also having in mind that the solo Batman movie doesn't even have an official release date yet, this can all be safely labeled as rumors and put away in a box for a few years. But bear in mind that the movie would not have been confirmed by the people at Warner Bros. if they didn't have some kind of idea for what they wanted to see.
What villains are ready to be showcased in a solo Batman movie? Should old favorites like the Penguin and Mr. Freeze come back to life? Or are there other, less familiar villains who deserve a chance to menace and terrorize modern audiences?
