In recent memory, as a comic book and comic movie fan, one of the ‘almost happened’ projects that has me most interested is Ben Affleck’s cancelled Batman standalone movie set in the world of Zack Snyder’s Batman V Superman.
Set to write, star, and direct, Affleck eventually stood down due to the sheer workload of the project and although he promised to find a director, the movie never happened.
But now we have a cool, ahem, new detail about the movie.
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We’ve known for a long time now that the movie would be similar to Grant Morrison’s iconic graphic novel Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth and would see Batman having to go through Arkham, facing off against many of his more famous enemies. And now we know that Mr Freeze would have been one of those characters.
The movie, first announced in 2015 (eleven years!!), was probably the most anticipated in the then-named DCEU, so it still stings that it never happened – especially since when it was being developed, Matt Reeves’ The Batman was set to be a younger Batman set in the same universe, meaning we may have had two actors playing the same Batman.
But enough about that.
So, illustrator Skyler Pinkerton, while chatting to a fan on Instagram, revealed that he worked on a lot of the pre-viz material for the movie in 2017, and while reminiscing, he revealed a big details: “It happened, and was a dream driving onto the WB lot every morning just to work on Batman (the Mr. Freeze scenes were my favorite).”
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Deathstroke, then played by Joe Manganiello, was set to be the main villain, but Pinkerton said that Mr Freeze, left, was set to be a significant part of the story too, even if he wasn’t to be a big part of the movie, saying: “[Freeze had] a very small part, but SO good. Some people have already come out and talked about it, so I feel I can at least echo what he said, which was it was heavily involved with Arkham Asylum, so there was going to be a bunch of villains popping in, but the Mr Freeze bits were more than a cameo. And it was beautiful and haunting.”
It really sounds like Affleck’s movie was set to really jump into the DC universe in a big way, and even though it would have been Batman’s first solo movie in the DCEU, it would have established that most, if not all, of his villains already existed and Batman had already put them behind bars.
It sounds like a fever dream, and the more I learn, the more I wish it had happened, but at this stage, it’s not really something that will ever see the light of day unless it gets the animated or comic book treatment.
So, Mr Freeze in the DCEU, thoughts? I know you have them, and I wanna hear ’em all.
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Source: SHH
Marc
Marc is a self-confessed nerd. Ever since seeing Star Wars for the first time around 1979 he’s been an unapologetic fan of the Wars and still believes, with Clone Wars and now Underworld, we are yet to see the best Star Wars. He’s a dad of two who now doesn’t have the time (or money) to collect the amount of toys, comics, movies and books he once did, much to the relief of his long-suffering wife. In the real world he’s a graphic designer. He started Following the Nerd because he was tired of searching a million sites every day for all the best news that he loves and decided to create one place where you can go to get the whole lot. Secretly he longs to be sitting in the cockpit of his YT-1300 Corellian Transport ship with his co-pilot Chewie, roaming the universe, waiting for his next big adventure, but feels just at home watching cartoons with his kids….
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