Last week, Ben Affleck capitulated to Warner Bros. and officially announced he will be leaving the role of Batman on Jimmy Kimmell.
Many names have been floated as who will play Bruce Wayne and don the cowl for the next solo outing for the caped crusader with Armie Hammer reportedly in negotiations with Warners.
Photo by Maximilian Bühn CC BY-SA 4.0
The Call Me By Your Name actor has a lot in common with the character. Hammer comes from a Wayne-esque fortune. His grandfather, Armand Hammer, was chair of Occidental Petroleum.
Hammer was actually once cast as Batman in Mad Max: Fury Road filmmaker George Miller's version of Justice League originally scheduled for 2009.
“It was pre-Christian Bale but the Christian Bale Batman had a lot more in common with it than any of the previous ones, whether it be George Clooney or Michael Keaton, which were almost campy,” Hammer told the Happy Sad Confused podcast about Miller's version of the Dark Knight. “This was one about a guy who is severely psychologically, almost deranged. It was dark and it was really intense and this guy had major trust issues, the whole thing. It was a great concept and a really cool idea.”
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Affleck told Kimmell that he couldn't “cut it” as Batman in the DCU films according toEntertainment Weekly. Affleck said, “I tried to direct a version of it and worked with a really good screenwriter but just couldn't come up with a version — I couldn't crack it and so I thought it's time for someone else to take a shot at it. They got some really good people so I'm excited.”
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Umberto Gonzalez of The Wrap is disputing the report, claiming that his sources told him the studio intends to go younger than 32 years-old, which is Hammer's age.
He Tweeted last night: “I'm being told… Armie Hammer. Batman. Not true.”
Armie Hammer. Batman. Not true.
— Umberto Gonzalez (@elmayimbe) February 19, 2019
Revenge of the Fans first made the call that Hammer would play Batman saying, “The casting brings closure to a story that, indirectly, began way back in 2007 when George Miller cast Hammer as Batman for Justice League: Mortal.”
Revenge said: “Hammer getting another chance to play the Dark Knight mirrors Henry Cavill's journey to the role of Superman. In 2004, Cavill came very close to playing the Man of Steel, only to see that disappear when the studio pulled the plug on Superman: Flyby and decided to make Bryan Singer's Superman Returns instead. Cavill was then given a second chance in 2011 when Zack Snyder cast him as Superman for a reboot of the franchise.”
The Batman will hit theaters, on June 25, 2021.
