Warner Brothers want a Batman Beyond movie with Michael Keaton, Johnny Depp and directed by Tim Burton!

You may have been around during the week when we all got very excited (here) at the news that 1989 Batman star Michael Keaton was in talks to return to the role as an older, weathered Batman in the upcoming The Flash movie.

Well, it seems that that’s not the whole story as Warners/AT&T have BIG plans for this version of Batman.

After Batman Returns, the second Keaton movie, the massively successful Batman: The Animated Series came out in 1992 and was  followed on by the sequel series Batman Beyond which took place several years later when Bruce Wayne was older and had retired, taking a new Batman – Terry McGinnis – under his wing.

And for years, the fans cried out to have Keaton return to play THAT version of Batman and guess what? It looks like that’s the plan at Warners.

Midnight’s Edge are reporting that Warners/AT&T want not just Keaton back but director Tim Burton to return to complete their Batman trilogy with the idea being Keaton’s Batman will be reintroduced in The Flash and then he’ll have a couple of other appearances in other DC movies as an other universe’s Batman and then, after that, he’ll be back in his own movie.

This would, of course, give Warner’s a massive bit of fan love and it would also set up a new, young Batman of the future to spin-off in his own franchise afterwards. This is very exciting news.

But that’s not all.

You may recall a few weeks ago when we reported that Matt Reeves was looking to cast a new Joker for his The Batman trilogy (here) and, although we didn’t report as much at the time, Johnny Depp’s name seemed to be attached to the role, even though it seemed they were looking a younger Joker to face-off against Robert Pattinson’s Batman – well, it seems there’s a good reason for this… Depp isn’t being sought for THIS movie’s Joker, but rather as the Joker in Keaton’s Batman Beyond movie.

Fans of Batman Beyond will remember the superb animated movie Return of the Joker Tim Drake, a former Robin after Dick Grayson, was transformed into a clone of the Joker and this is the role Warners want Depp to play.

So, just to be clear, Tim Burton directing a new Batman movie with long time collaborators Michael Keaton as Batman and Johnny Depp as Joker? Seriously, this sounds like a gift from the nerd gods.

This would also mean that, if the movie took place so far in Batman’s future, they could introduce a veteran Nightwing, Batgirl and – I’m just putting it out there, they could get Billy Dee Williams back as an aged Harvey Dent/Two-Face, a role he as always regretted not playing as he told us a few years back:

This could be an incredibly exciting move for Warners on several levels: it gives the fans what they want; it actually has a place in the lore, it would open up a whole new franchise and it would give us another Keaton/Burton collaboration. That all sounds like a win to me.

Anyway, what say you all? I want to hear your thoughts, gang…

Oh, and while we’re at it, can we have Michelle Pfeiffer back as Selina Kyle/Catwoman because, well, she’s still kicking all sorts of ass and if you recall, it was established in the Crisis on Infinite Earths Arrowverse event that Selina had married Bruce Wayne.

Check out this video she posted last year:

Seems relevant given the Michael Keaton #Batman News 😻 pic.twitter.com/jCVFUmrGHZ

— Charlie Schneider (@AwesomEmergency) June 24, 2020