BATFLECK’SOUT! Deadline is reporting that Ben Affleck is passing the torch. In an EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros. is dating their next rendition of Batman for June 25, 2021. This is the one that Matt Reeves has been attached to as writer and director. Ben Affleck, we hear, will not be donning the Dark Knight’s tights after playing the Caped Crusader in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad and Justice League and that’s because this movie will focus on a younger Bruce Wayne.
Reeves boarded Batman in February 2017, taking over for Affleck who was originally set to direct off a script he wrote with DC’s Geoff Johns. Affleck, we understand has a busy plate: As Deadline exclusively broke he is starring in and producing the feature adaptation of Kate Alice Marshall‘s novel I Am Still Alive, which Universal won in a competitive bidding scenario. The two-time Oscar winner is also starring in the Warner Bros.’ Gavin O’Connor drama Torrance. Affleck worked hard on The Batman story, but knew he wasn’t the right one for this particular version. A search is underway for a new Dark Knight.
Reeves’ Batman movie will be the ninth solo outing for the DC superhero in his 80-year career, and it will offer a take that hasn’t been seen in big-screen adaptations of the hero.
“It’s very much a point-of-view-driven, noir Batman tale,” Reeves told The Hollywood Reporter‘s West Coast TV editor Lesley Goldberg as part of a Creative Space interview published Wednesday. “It’s told very squarely on his shoulders, and I hope it’s going to be a story that will be thrilling but also emotional.”
Reeves continued by touting the detective aspect of the tale: “It’s more Batman in his detective mode than we’ve seen in the films. The comics have a history of that. He’s supposed to be the world’s greatest detective, and that’s not necessarily been a part of what the movies have been. I’d love this to be one where when we go on that journey of tracking down the criminals and trying to solve a crime, it’s going to allow his character to have an arc so that he can go through a transformation.”
Sure enough, the comic book Batman is often referred to as “The World’s Greatest Detective,” a fact that’s been pretty much ignored to this point in his cinematic incarnations; ironically, outside of the 1990s animated series, perhaps the most detection-heavy version of Batman to appear onscreen might be the 1960s series starring Adam West.
The reason for this is pretty obvious: Detective work isn’t necessarily very visual, and given the choice between punching villains and showing a man in a bat mask furrowing his brow while he thinks about things a lot, it’s understandable that the Movie Batmen of the past 50-plus years have tended to eschew the heavy mental lifting for the heavy physical lifting that makes a Bat jacked.
Excited for #TheBatman in Summer 2021 and to see @MattReevesLA vision come to life. https://t.co/GNgyJroMIO
— Ben Affleck (@BenAffleck) January 31, 2019
BREAKING If you are Black and live even near the vicinity of the polar vortex then you have the God’s permission to be ashy today says The Root in the funniest isht I’ve read all week.
MY HUSBAND’S ALMOST DEAD He’s on death row. Thanks to things like Dateline and the My Favorite Murder podcast, we’ve known America is here for true-crime stories and serial killers to scare the living daylights out of us when we’re on a stroll and needing to pass time before the dog poops. The true-crime nightmare-inducer du jour is Netflix’s Conversations With A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes. It’s a docuseries about Ted, a serial killer who confessed to 30 murders (and the actual number is likely higher); alas, this is America, and we can’t have nice things. People who have watched the docuseries are zeroing in on how “hot” Ted is, and Netflix would like them to cut it out.
CNN says people in 2019 are doing the same things the now-executed killer used to manipulate them into very unfortunate situations. Fine, Ted was a looker with dreamy blue eyes…and is also being portrayed by Zac Efron in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile. Hollywood is clearly on board with the thirst for Ted train because the trailer for that shows off Zac’s pecs and only glosses over him dragging a torso through the woods…..
Netflix has had enough of people on Twitter being like, “Yeah, he was LITERALLY the worst demon ever…but look at those cheek bones!” It finally slapped back at the thirsty hos on Twitter:
I’ve seen a lot of talk about Ted Bundy’s alleged hotness and would like to gently remind everyone that there are literally THOUSANDS of hot men on the service — almost all of whom are not convicted serial murderers
— Netflix US (@netflix) January 28, 2019
BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES Can GOOP fix Gwyneth’s hit and run?
REMEMBER LEGEND OF ZELDA? Melissa McEwan does her own version of links!
#TODAYSMOTIVATION Sometimes you just need to hear Oprah say it.
YES GODDAMN IT I WANTED BEAST MASTER WHEN I WAS NINE I thought he could use his animal controlling powers on me so I had no agency–I hate Matthew Rettenmund–it’s like he knows me.
MEME WITH THE MOSTEST Young Justice’s Connor Kent (Superboy) and Tim Drake (Red Robin) have an awkward misinterpretation.
HOT GAY KISS OF THE WEEK
#GayKiss pic.twitter.com/f4lqMbX9IS
— He & Him (@he_and_him) January 25, 2019
OUR COVER BOY Who draws comic-book covers: the legendary Phil Jimenez.
After graduating from The School of Visual Arts in New York City, 21-year-old Jimenez was hired by DC Comics, the American publishing house and division of DC Entertainment, where Pozner was his boss and mentor reported Plus magazine. “He was an incredibly talented man,” Jimenez said of Pozner, whom he immediately admired.
Pozner wasn’t an easy boss, he had what Jimenez calls, “some very strong opinions about the way things should be done.”
By the time they’d met, Pozner (who had designed album covers for The Kinks and Jimi Hendrix before he moved to the comic world) had risen the ranks at DC from production designer (where he wrote the ’80s-era Aquaman miniseries) to group director of creative services. The artist’s well-known exacting standards shaped Jimenez’s artisitic style, and they did little to discourage Jimenez from developing a crush on his 37-year-old boss. “I’d hang out with him at work, in the offices, far later than I had any reason to,” Jimenez recalls. “I would buy clothes I couldn’t afford to impress him. And eventually, I mustered the nerve to ask him on a date.”
But Pozner was hesitant to date someone who was both younger and HIV-negative. “He was 15 years older than I was,” Jimenez, now in his 40s, acknowledges. “And he had been my boss. [But] against his better judgment, he said yes. And it actually ended up being a really wonderful relationship.”
