Cosmic Book News first revealed plans of a Batman movie reboot to happen in 2016; it was said to feature a Batman in his second year of being a hero and tentatively titled “The Batman.”
Now our source, who previously gave us all the Justice League movie-related news, has further supplied us with more possible news on the Batman 2016 reboot.
We’re told there are some “mumblings” around Warner Bros. that they may want the Batman reboot based on the popular Batman: Arkham Asylum video game, and that this would be set in the same world as the Justice League movie.
We’re told DC Entertainment has thought long and hard about having several different universes, but through the success of Marvel, have decided that it wouldn’t make sense to the audience and financially to have numerous actors playing the same roles year by year.
Regarding Green Lantern, we’re told they have yet to decide on their Green Lantern property as well but are leaning towards a reboot with a new actor playing Hal Jordan (the Green Lantern in the Justice League) being introduced in the Justice League movie as an already established hero.
We’ll say while this is to be considered a rumor, the source has previously provided us with information that has seemingly been verified, including the aforementioned Batman 2016 movie reboot as well as the news that the new Zack Snyder Superman movie starring Henry Cavill, Man of Steel, will launch a new DC shared movie universe.
Now if the rumor is true and Warner Bros. does indeed go forth with a new Batman movie based on Arkham Asylum, that brings with it some rather interesting questions.
First of all, the obvious inclusion of the Joker. This would certainly bring up a reference to Heath Ledger in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. So would Warner Bros. go with it? It could be said that the Joker is a Batman villain, the Batman villain, in addition, the Nolan-verse was its own thing and is over. There is also the fact the added hype having the Joker “come back” would give to the movie. Interestingly enough, the Joker is to make his first appearance in the new DC comic books next month by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo. We already know the Man of Steel movie executives have a hand in the Superman comic books, so it’s not that far of a stretch to think the same about the New 52 Batman.
Another – perhaps – issue would be the use of Bane following The Dark Knight Rises. Bane was also featured in Arkham Asylum, as the Joker attempted to create an army of Bane-like thugs as well as using a chemical based on “Venom,” which gives Bane his super-strength. However, in Arkham Asylum this version of Bane is more like his comic book counterpart compared to the Tom Hardy version. So could we see the comic book Bane hit the big screen in 2016?
The video game does include a vast number of Batman villains, some of which could be written out of the Batman 2016 movie reboot, but from the sounds of it, the Joker would have to stay.
