When Michael Keaton was first announced to be making a surprise comeback as Batman in The Flash, fans instantly let their minds wander to the prospect of a Batman Beyond movie, something they’ve been dying to see become a reality for two decades. Those hopes were only reinforced when it was confirmed by DC Films president Walter Hamada that Tim Burton’s Caped Crusader would be the shared universe’s canonical Gotham City vigilante moving forward.
Of course, everything beyond The Flash dwells entirely within the realms of speculation, and we’ve unsurprisingly been inundated with potential destinations for Keaton over the last year. The latest addition to the overflowing drawers of scuttlebutt posit that the veteran actor is poised to return for not just HBO Max’s Batgirl, but Batman Beyond and Nightwing as well.
While there are no further details or information made available, this instantly invites questions. J.K. Simmons is set to return in Batgirl as the SnyderVerse’s Commissioner Gordon, so it’s unclear how he and Keaton would end up in the same timeline unless, of course, The Flash alters the very fabric of the DCEU as we know it. Something a lot of folks are fully expecting.
Batman Beyond isn’t officially in development as far as we know, while The Tomorrow War director Chris McKay admitted that Nightwing wasn’t dead, but it wasn’t particularly close to getting the green light, either. It’s all very thin, then, but once The Flash is released in November of next year and Batgirl finished rounding up an ensemble, we’ll have a much better idea of what the future holds for Michael Keaton’s Batman.
