Kevin Smith: If The Flash succeeded, a Keaton-led Batman Beyond movie was coming

Sadly by now we all know that The Flash – which, by the way, is nowhere near as bad as many are making out – was a big failure for Warners/DC, signaling the end of the DCEU as we know it, especially since Blue Beetle, Shazam: Fury of the Gods and, if early word is true, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, are all being deemed failures.

But it’s not just the end of the DCEU that it signaled, it seems that it also signaled the end of Micheal Keaton’s run as The Dark Knight too.

Keaton’s return to the role of Batman was one of the movie’s absolute highlights and it seems that there was hope that it would open the door to the return of that version of Batman in a big way.

We reported that Keaton was seen as the Nick Fury of the DCEU at one point, with the plan being to have him paper in several movies moving forward, bringing together a new team of heroes after the events of The Flash and he had even filmed scenes for the canceled Batgirl movie and the upcoming Aquaman sequel – a role that is now gone, removed by new DCU overseers James Gunn and Peter Safran, who feel that having Keaton or even Affleck in the movie (both were to appear at one point) will be promising fans something they cannot deliver one anymore – but alas, that was but the beginning.

We reported, below, that there was plans for a Batman Beyond movie with Keaton training up a new Batman but it was cancelled:

Keaton-led Batman Beyond movie was coming but has been put on hold!

Now, thanks to DC superfan and filmmaker Kevin Smith, we know why.

On his Fatman on Batman Podcast, Smith said that he has spoken to long-time Batman producer Michela Uslan’s son at The Flash premiere and that, should the movie do well, the Batman Beyond movie would go into production: “I saw his kid at the premiere and I said ‘Where’s your dad?’ He goes, ‘He’s home watching the grosses.

“I said, ‘Why?’ And he goes, ‘Because if this movie does as well as The Batman’ — and Matt Reeves’ The Batman opened at $130 million — so he goes, ‘If this movie opens as well as The Batman, then one of the next Batman movies they’re going to make is Batman Beyond with Michael Keaton.”

In the original 1999 series Batman/Bruce Wayne trained up Terry McGinnis to be Gotham’s new protector. This would have been a wonderful role for Keaton, taking him into the future of Batman lore on the big screen.

Sadly, The Batman was a big hit for Warners/DC while The FLash is forecast to lose them over $100m. Therefore, it’s assumed that KEaton’s time in the cape and cowl is now closed.

#£@%!

New report says Micheal Keaton is set for a Batman Beyond live-action series at HBO Max

Interestingly, The Flash director Andy Muschietti had recently talked about Keaton’s Batman in the movie and why he was no longer Batman in the story before coming out of retirement for Barry Allen(s): “I really wanted to defy people’s expectations of where Bruce Wayne would be thirty years later, and I also wanted to deepen the backstory if Bruce Wayne, as the story tells, has been retired for twenty-five years, what happened to him? I always said something should happen to Bruce Wayne to want to stop being Batman.

“And my idea was, he did something that goes against his code and killed a criminal in front of [the criminal’s] child—not knowingly, but he still did it. Which is an exact mirroring situation of what happened to him when his parents were killed in front of him [next to] Monarch Theaters, and that created the monster that The Batman is.

WATCH: New The Flash behind-the-scenes focuses on Micheal Keaton’s Batman returning

“So he just couldn’t cope with it, and that’s why he decided to shut off his other side, Batman. And he hasn’t been able to forgive himself. And now, the way we find him is a bit of like, the evolution of that journey. You know, he’s a tragic figure. He’s basically a character that is in search of redemption, but eventually finds a way to do it by helping Barry.”

This is interesting and could certainly tie into the Batman Begins story, however, in The Flash it is revealed that Batman’s quest to clear up crime in Gotham had succeeded and the city was now one of the safest in America… presumably this is one of the events that were altered across time after Barry’s time-meddling?

Whatever it was, I feel that a Batman Beyond movie would be a winner for Warners and the fans and, honestly, it’s just anther disappointing chapter in the recent DC story.

Hopefully, things can be turned around under Gunn and Safran. We can hope.

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See Smith’s comments here:

YOU #TheFlashMovie BOYCOTTERS KILLED A BATMAN BEYOND MOVIE….. pic.twitter.com/vxNal1S522

— Danger (@Dangerhayd) June 20, 2023

Additional sources: The Direct and THR