There was a time when having two Batmen in your cinematic universe would have felt like a clerical error. But in James Gunn’s brave and bold new DCU, having several Bruce Waynes is increasingly looking less like an irritating glitch and more like a deliberate choice.
Gunn has been clear for some time that he sees no issue with two Caped Crusaders striding into multiplexes at the same time. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is down to the fact that Matt Reeves’s The Batman – an insular, noirish, Kurt Cobain-obsessed but relatively real-world take on the Dark Knight – proved pretty popular with audiences just prior to Gunn being handed the keys to the DC kingdom. But who am I to quibble? Sure, this might be a universe destined to feature cavalcades of superheroes who exist in a magical world of shimmering cosplay, but if we can just convince the geek in the street that the Robert Pattinson version of Batman is living in a completely different, gritty David Fincher-esque rat-infested underbelly of Gotham, all will be reasonably well.
We may eventually find ourselves living in a world in which cinematic universes are so desperate to stay flexible (and profitable) that they accommodate multiple versions of the same hero at once, without telling audiences why or how they’re different; dooming them to a future of confusion, apathy and narrative fatigue.
The current suggestion is that the Gunn-produced Batman movie The Brave and the Bold, set within the DCU, will most likely hit cinemas in 2028, while Reeves’s sequel to The Batman will exist as a DC Elseworlds story in a completely separate creative space called the “Batman Epic Crime Saga”. Two Dark Knights, two universes, one comic-book brand. We all know it’s just smoke, mirrors and strategically deployed multiversal chaos – but the very thought that we might get two decent Caped Crusaders after decades in which it was pretty hard to grab hold of one at a time might just be enough to have the vast majority of us hyperventilating into our cowls with glee. If DC gets it right.
George Clooney’s nipples were at least trying something different … the actor, left, and Chris O’Donnell in 1997’s Batman and Robin. Photograph: United Archives GmbH/Alamy
Gunn has been out and about (mostly online) this week as we ramp up to the release of Superman in cinemas, and the most interesting thing he’s had to say is that there’s no reason Batman villains can’t appear in both versions of the Dark Knight’s story. “There’s no diehard rule,” Gunn said on Threads, in response to a fan. He also added: “But both the Crime Saga and DCU are a part of DC Studios, so we of course take everything into account.”
This doesn’t mean Barry Keoghan’s Joker will appear in both The Batman Part II and The Brave and the Bold, but it does suggest that the firewall between Elseworlds and the mainline DCU is not exactly steel-reinforced. If Reeves’s rogues’ gallery proves too popular, don’t be surprised if they start quietly migrating into Gunn’s continuity like confused tourists who’ve wandered into the wrong Batcave.
And then there are Gunn’s comments in an interview with Rolling Stone that he’s not hoping to make The Brave and the Bold’s Dark Knight into a “funny, campy Batman” because this simply doesn’t interest him. It’s a line that might make us collapse into a nostalgia coma for the days when George Clooney’s nipples were at least trying something different. So just how does Gunn make this new Caped Crusader stand out? Perhaps this is why reports suggest that the new DCU big cheese has refused to sign off on a script for The Brave and the Bold until it’s absolutely perfect. In fact, this is supposedly the Guardians of the Galaxy director’s new mantra for the DCU: that most of Hollywood’s superhero-based failures over the past few decades have been down to poor scripts that were never properly finished – and that he’s determined not to repeat these mistakes.
Insisting on a perfect screenplay is an undeniably noble ambition, especially in a genre where entire billion-dollar franchises have been stitched together from studio notes, deleted scenes and vibes. And yet if Gunn really does believe that two Batmen can coexist peacefully in the same cultural sphere without making audiences feel as if they’ve accidentally watched the same film twice, it’s possible he’s never seen The Illusionist or The Prestige, and had to spend time trying to explain to a confused family member which one actually had Paul Giamatti in it.
