Ben Affleck's Batman Movie Rumored To Be Set In Arkham Asylum

In line with one of the most lucrative video game franchises in recent memory, Ben Affleck's Batman film will reportedly center on Arkham Asylum, an institution for the criminally-insane that has been featured in numerous other-media adaptations.

Besides appearances in movies and on Gotham, Arkham is the title setting for a series of videogames from Rocksteady which have proven to revolutionize how fans view much of Batman's universe. While movies and TV had given audiences a different look at Batman himself than the one seen in the monthly comics, names like Harley Quinn, Oracle, and Azrael popped up in the games and gave non-comics fans a sense for those characters for, really, the first time outside of animated series.

The look of Harley, for instance, clearly influenced how the character was depicted in both 2011's The New 52 relaunch and in the upcoming Suicide Squad movie.

Ben Affleck, who is reportedly working on the script with DC's Geoff Johns, has said that his story would be an original one and that it would draw from a number of Batman comics, rather than directly adapting one. Batman On Film suggests one such comic would likely be Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on a Serious Earth. It's their report that indicates Affleck's film will take place largely inside of Arkham.

Of course, that's in keeping with a few hints already dropped: persistent rumors that it would be not one but many of Batman's villains troubling the Caped Crusader in the next film had already led some fans to suspect part of the movie would be set in Arkham, even before the Ultimate Cut of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice -- out on Blu-ray tomorrow -- revealed that Batman arranged to have Lex Luthor sent to Arkham after the villain was imprisoned at the end of that film.