In addition to the high-res images and extended plot, check out information for Batman in Justice League released by Warner Bros.
BATMAN
With age comes experience, especially if you’re Bruce Wayne, who has been suiting up as the vigilante Dark Knight for more than half his life. He’s seen it all…or so he thought. Mastery of the martial arts, extreme strength and endurance, high-tech suits, highly weaponized gadgetry, a brilliant deductive mind, and vast personal resources—all this at hand, all this he’s fine-tuned so he could go it alone.
Until now.
That Bruce Wayne is reaching out to others is a reflection of the side of himself he takes pains to hide, but which is at the core of his personality and his popularity. Ben Affleck, who also executive produced the film, suits up for his third turn as the character who serves as a bridge, the actor believes, between humans and metahumans. Now, Batman will have to build a bridge between heroes—himself included.
“Batman still really resonates because on the one hand he’s a Super Hero, but on the other hand he is just like us,” Affleck states. “He feels vulnerable; he bleeds if you cut him. He is a real person on the inside and yet he is ‘super.’ There are all kinds of contradictions inherent in that, which makes for interesting storytelling.”
The Batman comics, he continues, “are mystery stories at their root. Mysteries of the self, of character and identity, as well as the mystery that man is, and always will remain, to a certain extent, to himself.”
Now, following the loss of Superman, Batman must take it upon himself to dig deep, to find a way to not only accept help but actively seek it. For once, Batman will have to engage with others, and to do that, he’ll have to be…engaging.
Producer Charles Roven notes, “You’d never call Batman endearing, but now, in this particular story, Ben makes him so because the character is struggling to come out of that darkness, to find a way to actually inspire others to work with him. And it’s so wonderful to watch Ben play a completely different kind of tone with that character. He can still get dark in the role, and he does. This is Batman, after all. But he’s also got a sense of humor that comes out of this effort he makes that’s completely like a fish-out-of-water scenario for him, and Ben is just great at it.”
The first person who in fact seeks Bruce out is one he has already formed something of a friendship with—Diana Prince. Bruce once told her he feels there’s some imminent type of attack coming. When it comes to Batman’s sense of impending danger, he’s usually right. However, “Bruce was wrong about Superman, and it cost him his first real ally, and the world so much more,” Affleck says. “He won’t make that mistake again.”
Too late, Bruce realized that Superman, an alien, was in many ways better able to connect to humanity than he himself can. “The fact that we can be alien even to ourselves really made a big impression on me and on the way I looked at the Batman character going forward into this film,” Affleck continues. “As Bruce says, ‘Superman was a beacon to the world. He didn’t just save people, he made them see the best parts of themselves.’ That’s something that Bruce never considered before, I think, and it was a fascinating way to grow the character into a team player.”
Deborah Snyder observes, “Bruce Wayne was really touched by Superman’s sacrifice; it gave him faith in humanity. But he also feels he let Superman down, so he decides he has an even greater responsibility to protect the world from the danger he was warned about, and to do it in memory of Superman so his death wasn’t in vain. So, Bruce asks Diana to help him put a team together.”
“Justice League” has a November 17, 2017 release directed by Zack Snyder, with the story by Chris Terrio and Zack Snyder, the screenplay by Chris Terrio and Joss Whedon, and stars Ben Affleck as Batman, Henry Cavill as Superman, Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, Jason Momoa as Aquaman, Ezra Miller as The Flash, Ray Fisher as Cyborg, J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon and Willem Dafoe an Atlantean, Nuidis Vulko.
Fueled by his restored faith in humanity and inspired by Superman’s selfless act, Bruce Wayne enlists the help of his newfound ally, Diana Prince, to face an even greater enemy. Together, Batman and Wonder Woman work quickly to find and recruit a team of metahumans to stand against this newly awakened threat. But despite the formation of this unprecedented league of heroes—Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg and The Flash—it may already be too late to save the planet from an assault of catastrophic proportions.
