Ben Affleck has officially retired from the cape and mask. He will step aside, and pass the torch to a new actor for the upcoming, "The Batman" which will be released June 25th, 2021. Affleck will be replaced by a younger actor, and the movie will take place early in the cape crusaders career. Who do you think should be the next Batman/Bruce Wayne? How would you rate Ben Affleck in his portayal of Bruce Wayne/Batman to the other actors who portayed the datk knight? Who is the best/worst?
If they go with some star power, I could see Chris Pine being the new batman. Wouldn't that be a hoot. Playing Batman and Capt. Kirk.
I know Batman is supposed to be a nomal sized guys like Michael Keaton or Christian Bale. But I'd wish they'd pick somebody who looks like you go a few rounds with Anthony Joshua. Maybe Michael Jai White or more buffed Armie Hammer. Affleck was tall but I never really bought him as a real bad ass. Pearl Harbor may have had something to do with that. A truly physically imposing batman could add some darker tones and maybe a little more of the violence and less of the gadgets.
He's 6' tall, which is the same height as Val Kilmer and Christian Bale. George Clooney was 5'11" and Michael Keaton was only 5'9"'. Only Ben Affleck was tall at 6'4", but hollywood has a way of making an actor seem taller if they need.
Pine says he won't play comic book characters or superheros. He is worried about the the weight gain and loss and how it will affect his overall health. Love interests he has no problem with or Captain Kirk who spents his most of his time with love interests. Pretty smart casting choices if you ask me!
I have heard Armie Hammers name thrown around. He was actually cast in the original Justice League movie, before it was canceled. Another name that seems to be real popular is Jake Gyllenhaal. He was a beast in Southpaw.
Yeah. I don't know why Gyllenhaal's films don't have a higher profile. He was absolutely amazing in End Of Watch. So was Michael Pena in that movie. But it literally died at the box office despite getting great reviews.
https://www.denofgeek.com/uk/movies/batman/21717/the-9-actors-who-ve-played-batman Here's the nine actors who've played Gotham's Dark Knight... 1. Lewis G Wilson Wilson was the first and youngest actor ever to play the adult Batman, and also the least successful. At 23, the unknown thespian donned the cape and the cowl in the 15-part 1943 Columbia serial Batman. While he looked the part of the dashing playboy, his physique was more Danny DeVito as the Penguin. One critic described Wilson as “thick about the middle.” Maybe that was why he wore his utility belt just below his chest. Critics also complained that his voice was too high and that he had a Boston accent. That, of course, wouldn’t be the last time someone complained about Batman’s voice. After Batman, Wilson’s career went nowhere. Most of his roles went uncredited. His next biggest movie part was probably in the 1951 cult classic Bowanga Bowanga. A few years later he was out of showbiz altogether. His son, Michael G Wilson, however, fared better in Hollywood, becoming the executive producer of the James Bond series. Lewis G Wilson died in 2000. 2. Robert Lowrey Lowery took over the role in the follow-up serial, 1949’s Batman And Robin. Unlike Lewis, Lowery, 36 at the time, was a veteran actor, having already appeared in The Mark Of Zorro (1940), The Mummy's Ghost (1944) and Dangerous Passage (1944). He also filled out the Batsuit better than Lewis, with his utility belt hanging where you would expect it. Though Lowery never played Batman in another movie, he did get to wear the cape once more and make superhero history in the process. In 1956 he guest-starred on an episode of The Adventures Of Superman, marking the first time a Batman actor shared screen time with a Superman actor. (One for the fact fans: the two actors also appeared together in their pre-superhero days, in a WWII anti-VD propaganda film called Sex Hygiene). After Batman, Lowrey enjoyed another 20 years in movies and TV. He died in 1971. 3. Adam West The man logging the most hours in the Batcave, of course, was William West Anderson, whom you probably know better as Adam West. Either you love him for his goofy charm or hate him for blemishing the Bat’s image for several decades. His campy, over-the-top portrayal of Gotham’s Guardian infiltrated nearly every medium, including a 1966 movie and several animated series. Legend has it producer William Dozier cast West after seeing him play a James Bond-like spy called Captain Q in a Nestlé Quik TV ad. He beat future Wonder Woman co-star Lyle Waggoner for the role. Dozier, who supposedly hated comic books, decided the only way the show would be successful was if they camped it up. So blame him. Things would almost come full circle when, in 1970, West was offered the role of James Bond in Diamonds Are Forever. West declined, later writing in his autobiography that he believed Bond should always be played by a Brit. Holy bad career moves, Batman! After the Batman series went off the air in 1968, West was resigned to typecast hell. At one point he was forced to make public appearances as the Caped Crusader to earn a living. Then, in 1977, he returned to the tube as Batman, doing his voice in The New Adventures Of Batman, and then on such shows as Super Friends. West’s resurgence as a pop-culture icon began in the early 90s when he starred as a has-been TV action hero in the pilot episode of Lookwell, produced by Conan O'Brien and Robert Smigel. It wasn’t picked up but took on a cult following online. (Check it out here.) Since then his cult popularity has increased. He did the Batman voice once again for the LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham videogame and and made regular appearances on the animated series Family Guy until his death in 2017. 4. Michael Keaton It took more than 20 years for Adam West to lose his exclusivity on Batman. When director Tim Burton (who, like Dozier, was not a fan of comic books) and Michael Keaton were announced for 1989’s Batman, fans went bat-shit crazy, thinking their beloved superhero was going to get the Adam West treatment again. Keaton's casting caused such controversy that 50,000 protest letters were sent to Warner Bros’ offices. In an effort to appease the naysayers, Batman co-creator Bob Kane was hired as the film’s creative consultant. Other Hollywood stars considered for the role of Batman included Mel Gibson, Kevin Costner, Charlie Sheen, Pierce Brosnan, Tom Selleck and Bill Murray. But producer Jon Peters said he cast Keaton because “The image of Batman is a big male model type, but I wanted a guy who's a real person who happens to put on this weird armor. A guy who's funny and scary. Keaton's both. He's got that explosive, insane side.'' This certainly showed in his portrayal of Bats ("Wanna get nuts?!"), which remains loved by critics and fans alike. Variety magazine gushed, “Michael Keaton captures the haunted intensity of the character, and seems particularly lonely and obsessive without Robin around to share his exploits.” Keaton was rewarded by being the first actor to reprise the role on the big screen. And in 1992’s Batman Returns, Keaton again garnered positive reviews. After Batman Returns, Keaton’s career slowed down, before resurging again in a big way. Comedy roles like the inadvertently-TLC-loving police chief in Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg’s The Other Guys helped him back towards the top, before his miraculous and self-referential turn in Birdman (Or The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance) cemented his position as a much-loved, Oscar-nominated talent. Even more recently, he was ace in Spotlight and dipped his toes back into the superhero pool with Marvel movie Spider-Man: Homecoming. 5. Val Kilmer When the Batman franchise was turned over to director Joel Schumacher, Keaton decided not to return. Daniel Day-Lewis, Ralph Fiennes, William Baldwin and Johnny Depp were reportedly considered as replacements. But the job was won by Val Kilmer – probably the most forgettable of the modern Batmen. Go ahead – try to remember. See? You can’t. Schumacher became interested in Kilmer for 1995’s Batman Forever after seeing him in Tombstone (in which he played Doc Holiday, who Adam West also portrayed in a movie before he did the Batman TV series, fact fans!). Kilmer allegedly accepted the role without even reading the script or knowing who the new director was. Schumacher quickly learned who Kilmer was, though, and the two clashed on the set. Schumacher later described Kilmer as “childish and impossible,” claiming that he fought with various crewmen and refused to speak to him for two weeks after the director asked his star to stop behaving rudely. Kilmer’s performance got mixed reviews. As The New York Times put it, “The prime costume is now worn by Val Kilmer, who makes a good Batman but not a better one than Michael Keaton.” Bob Kane felt otherwise, saying he thought Kilmer did the best job of all the actors to have played Batman up to that point. The movie performed better than Batman Returns at the box office, but Kilmer was destined to be a one-term caped crusader. Between his bad attitude and his concern that the superhero wasn’t getting as much screen time as the villains, he left the Batcave for good. Instead of filming 1997’s Batman & Robin, he did The Saint. After Batman, Kilmer’s career headed downhill. Though it was probably 1996’s The Island Of Dr Moreau that had more to do with that than Batman Forever. 6. George Clooney Clooney’s movie career was just taking off when he was cast in 1997’s Batman & Robin, with his breakthrough performance coming just the year before in Quentin Tarantino’s From Dusk Till Dawn. Producers probably felt they pulled off a major coup landing the soon-to-be mega-movie star. Those producers, along with Clooney, probably regret that decision now. Batman & Robin was a disaster, rife with homoeroticism, camp and those infamous Bat-nipples. Clooney once joked that he helped to kill the franchise. “Joel Schumacher told me we never made another Batman film because Batman was gay” (let's hope that in itself wouldn't be an issue in 2019). Critics and fans agreed. In 1997, Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, “George Clooney is the big zero of the film, and should go down in history as the George Lazenby of the series.” Batman & Robin received 11 nominations at the Razzie Awards and frequently ranks among the worst films of all time. It was also the worst box-office performer of the modern Batman movies. But all that did nothing to hurt Clooney’s career. After Batman, he went on to super stardom, starring in Out Of Sight (with a cameo from Michael Keaton), Three Kings and O Brother, Where Art Thou? over the next three years. You don't need reminding of where he's gone since then, either. 7. Christian Bale Between Adam West and George Clooney, Batman seemed destined to remain a joke, at least when it came to live-action adaptations. Then came along Christopher Nolan. The Memento and Insomnia director was given the job of realising what became Batman Begins, and he planned to reinvent the franchise, finally making the Dark Knight dark. Among the early candidates for the Batman/Bruce Wayne roles were Billy Crudup, Jake Gyllenhaal, Joshua Jackson and Cillian Murphy. But Nolan ultimately chose Christian Bale, explaining that “he has exactly the balance of darkness and light that we were looking for.” Bale got generally favourable reviews for 2005’s Batman Begins, with several critics saying it reminded them of his brilliant turn in American Psycho. Not so brilliant, it seems, was his uber-husky Bat-voice. One reviewer compared Bale's guttural utterances to a “10-year-old putting on an ‘adult’ voice to make prank phone calls.” It got even more gravelly in 2008’s The Dark Knight, with NPR’s David Edelstein describing it as “a voice that's deeper and hammier than ever.” Even Kevin Conroy, the man behind probably the most recognisable Batman voice, chimed in, saying at a C2E2 panel in 2010 that Bale’s voice was “ridiculous” and implored the actor to stop doing it. Bale ignored this advice in The Dark Knight Rises (a film in which he wears the Batsuit a lot less, to be fair), but it was Tom Hardy's Bane vocal noises that garnered more vocal criticism from Nolan's threequel. Regardless, Bale's Batman is fondly remembered, and always pops up during discussions of 'who's the best?', not least because of the stellar scripts, direction and cinematography which generally surrounded him. Rumours after The Dark Knight Rises insisted that Mr Bale turned down a huge pay cheque to avoid reprising the role once more, a decision that remains a particularly tantalising 'what if?' moment in Batman's cinematic history. Between his turns as Bruce/Batman, Bale gained a reputation as being an interesting on-set presence thanks to his famous Terminator Salvation rant. That hasn't slowed his career down at all, though - working with Ridley Scott on Exodus: Gods And Kings for instance, as well as with David O. Russell in on The Fighter and American Hustle - both got him Oscar noms, he won for The Fighter. He's currently raking in awards nods for his depiction of Dick Cheney in Vice. 8. Will Arnett With any other actor in the role, the presence of Batman in the 2013 cinematic smash The LEGO Movie could easily have become the sort of performance that gets neglected from lists like this. However, Arrested Development star Will Arnett brought some comedy magic to the role and landed his own spin-off movie as a result. It helped that movie came at the perfect time in Batman’s busy cinema schedule – long enough after The Dark Knight Rises for lampooning of Bale’s gruff Batman to be entirely welcome, and far enough before Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice that Arnett’s new iteration didn’t get lost in all the hype for Ben Affleck’s debut. The result of this perfect casting and canny scheduling was a Batman who will go down in the history books as the funniest, freshest and downright fun-est take on the character. From penning ‘dark’ lyrics to helplessly attempting to hide his secret identity, Arnett’s Batman was a gag machine who The LEGO Movie’s primary younger audience really embraced. There were knowing winks in there for adult fans too, with such as dialogue as “I only work in black – and sometimes very very dark grey’ appealing to comic book fans and LEGO Batman’s painful attempts to hit a button with a Batarang surely connecting with anyone who’s ever got stuck for hours at a simple door-button in the Arkham Asylum games. Arnett’s delivery, combined with Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s zingers, made this portrayal a quick favourite for many, and he reprised the role in The LEGO Batman Movie earlier this year, to equally impressive effect. Bats is back in The LEGO Movie 2, out this year. If you want more hilarious Arnett voice work in the meantime, check out BoJack Horseman on Netflix – you wont regret it, we promise. 9. Ben Affleck Ben Affleck donned the cinematic cape and cowl for the first time in Zack Snyder’s Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice. After initial scepticism, vast sections of the internet seemed to warm to the idea during the film's promotional period, perhaps thanks to Affleck’s unpredictable turn in David Fincher’s novel adaptation Gone Girl, as well as his impressive trailer brooding. Snyder told the world that Batfleck will "bear the scars of a seasoned crime fighter, but retain the charm that the world sees in billionaire Bruce Wayne". It's easy to agree. Affleck's take is as conflicted-yet-charismatic as any of the Batmen that have gone before. As Affleck's first Bat-movie sees him fight Supes (at least to start with), his take on Bruce Wayne had to work hard on his tech-building capabilities as well his gym regimen. The fight that eventually broke out between the two heroes was a brutal affair, recalling the iconic Frank Miller comic The Dark Knight Returns. The reviews were pretty kind to him after BvS (but not the film in general). Suicide Squad and Justice League didn't fare much better critically and perhaps not surprisingkly Affleck is very likely to be hanging up the cowl. However, Matt Reeves is still supposedly attached to The Batman, and Affleck's not completely out of the the frame. The voices of Batman Outside of this live-action realm, plenty of talented actors have loaned their vocal chords to Gotham's caped crusader over the years. For the most part, though, the bulk of the animated Batman work over the years has gone to two actors. In real life Olan Soule was a bespectacled pencil-necked geek, but that didn’t stop him from voicing the Dark Knight in six different animated series, beginning with 1968’s The Batman/Superman Hour. His run pretty much ended when Adam West took over voicing duties in the late 70s. Soule, who also appeared in such films as The Day The Earth Stood Still and North By Northwest, died in 1994. Unlike Soule, Kevin Conroy could probably pull off Batman in real life, but so far he’s been relegated to voice work – and quite a lot of it. Conroy began voicing the superhero in Batman: The Animated Series, which made its debut in 1992. Since then, he’s done three other Batman series, a bunch of animated movies and videogames. Others to voice Batman are Will Friedle (Batman Beyond), Rino Romano (The Batman), Diedrich Bader (Batman: The Brave And The Bold), Jeremy Sisto (Justice League: The New Frontier), Bruce Thomas (who voiced Batman in commercials for GM’s OnStar service and portrayed the character briefly in the live-action TV series Birds Of Prey) and Roger Craig Smith (Arkham Origins).
I'm not the biggest fan of Affleck but he was maybe the BEST Batman/Bruce Wayne. It's really unfortunate. He was first given the task to come up with the next Batman movie and even wrote the script for it. Many at Warner Bros say it was the best Batman script they've ever read including the Nolan ones. It's really unfortunate that Warner Bros have botched so much and are scrapping it. Saying that, Matt Reeves is a pretty good director and there's a new angle they are taking with Batman. To explore his more detective roots which we've never really seen in any live action Batman movies. It's supposed to be a noir film based on Batman's detective work. I could go for Jon Hamm of the names that are being thrown around but I think they are looking for someone even younger. If you guys haven't seen the Ultimate Edition of Batman v. Superman, do yourself a favor and watch it. Warner Bros completely botched Zack Snyder's film by cutting out 30 minutes for the theatrical release which didn't come out right. The Ultimate Edition is actually a terrific film.
Someone needs to do a proper London gangster flick with Elba in the lead role. Like The Long Good Friday, the film that turned Bob Hoskins into a star. He'd shine as ballsy gangster with his head always turning to see who is doing him in.
If I had to rate them: 6.) George Clooney - The worst thing to ever happen to Batman...I mean come on nipples. 5.)Val Kilmer - Kilmer was a good Bruce Wayne, and an OK Batman, but he suffered at the hands of a terrible script. 4.) Adam West - For many the original Batman, West is a favorite. His goofy, campy take of the caped crusader will remain for many the best. 3.)Ben Affleck - For all the flack he got, with many thinking he would be terrible in the role, he pulled off the brooding, battle scarred, older Bruce Wayne/Batman, in what was probably the closest to Batman in the comics. It is too bad we never got to see his Batman in a stand-alone. 2.)Michael Keaton - A comedic actor as Batman in a serious movie? Keaton did fantastic in portraying both Batman and Bruce Wayne. He was the first Batman in a major motion picture movie. He remains one of yhe best. 1.) Christian Bale - Christian Bale is hands down the best Batman/Bruce Wayne. He was born to play the role.
