Make the Batfleck Movie: DC Fans Renew Calls for Ben Affleck’s Batman Movie

Batfleck fans are renewing their campaign urging Warner Bros. to #MakeTheBatfleckMovie on Batman actor Ben Affleck's 49th birthday. The actor-director was attached to The Batman movie before filmmaker Matt Reeves reworked the standalone as a reboot with Robert Pattinson starring as a younger caped crusader, setting it outside of the DC Extended Universe where Affleck has portrayed Batman since 2016. Affleck, who briefly donned the cape and cowl last year for additional photography on Zack Snyder's Justice League director's cut, next reprises the role opposite his Justice League co-star Ezra Miller and Batman '89's Michael Keaton in The Flash.

"We live in a society where the best Batman doesn't have a solo movie," one Twitter user tweeted Sunday, referencing an exchange from the Snyder Cut that brought Batfleck and Jared Leto's Joker together for the first time in a hook for a Justice League Part 2. Another fan wrote, "Because the best Batman ever made deserves his own trilogy. It's time to #MakeTheBatfleckMovie."

That’s our Batman!!!! @BenAffleck #MakeTheBatfleckMovie #HappyBirthdayBenAffleck pic.twitter.com/ZhJmC99DtR

— The Batfleck Movie #MakeTheBatfleckMovie (@BatfleckMovie) August 15, 2021

The trending topic, which nears 50,000 tweets as of publication time, is just the latest round of the campaign clamoring for Affleck's never-made Batman movie. Calls have only grown louder since the release of the Snyder Cut, which ends with a setup for the Batfleck film when the assassin Deathstroke (Joe Manganiello) reveals Batman's secret identity to Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) and offers to destroy the Bat free of charge.

Manganiello has described Affleck's version as "really cool, really dark, and really hard," telling Yahoo last year that the unmade Batman movie "was a really dark story in which Deathstroke was like a shark or a horror movie villain that was dismantling Bruce's life from the inside out."

"It was this systemic thing," Manganiello added. "He killed everyone close to Bruce and destroyed his life to try and make him suffer because he felt that Bruce was responsible for something that happened to him."

Manganiello later revealed to ComicBook that Batgirl would have helped Batman battle Deathstroke before appearing in her solo movie on HBO Max (where she's played by Leslie Grace). Snyder has shared his support for the Batfleck vs. Deathstroke movie, but recently told MTV News he was unsure Affleck would return for a Batman prequel series on the streaming service.

Jay Oliva, the storyboard artist behind Snyder's Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, where Affleck made his Dark Knight debut, tweeted in December that Affleck's solo movie "would have [made] fans proud." But the actor-director said in 2019 that he just "couldn't crack" The Batman movie he co-wrote with Geoff Johns, later telling GQ that he lost enthusiasm for a solo effort after appearing in the Joss Whedon-completed version of Justice League in 2017.

"I had my fill of that. [Warner Bros.] said, 'Would you want to direct and star in a solo Batman movie?' I found that I had lost my enthusiasm or passion for it," Affleck said last March. "This should really be made by somebody for whom it's their wildest dream come true and, for me, it had become something different, and it was clear to me that it was time to move on. But I do have some really fond memories, particularly of Batman v Superman, and how exciting that was. And how energizing it was and how much fun we had."

Here's how fans are calling on the studio to #MakeTheBatfleckMovie: