With Robert Pattinson firmly behind the Batwheel, it may seem strange to some DC fans that James Gunn is in the early stages of creating his own Batman for a completely different version that would join David Corenswet’s Superman in the Gunn led portion of the DCU to lead his own, totally separate Batman movie, The Brave and The Bold. Putting aside the eyebrow raising idea that we may have two versions of the Bat on the big screen at the same time, one of the names at the top of fans’ lists for actors to play the role is actor Brandon Sklenar (1923, It Ends With Us), and a new social media development is having DC fans on Twitter freaking out a little bit.
Superman star David Corenswet has started following Brandon Sklenar on Instagram, and while it may seem non-consequential at first glance, a portion of the DC Twitter-verse can’t help asking if this means that the popular fancast for Batman might just be more than wishful thinking. Going down both of the actors filmographies, you can see that neither of them have any existing shows or movies in common and that there seems to be no other (public) good reason who Corenswet would be paying attention to Sklenar. This doesn’t mean that there isn’t another reason behind the scenes entirely, but for fans wanting to see Sklenar take up the cape and cowl it’s certainly fun to think about.
While we currently have a Batman franchise with a sequel in production, James Gunn has already said that he has plans for his own version of Bruce Wayne as the tone and overall world that Matt Reeves has built with The Batman and The Penguin doesn’t really fit nicely in with the world that Gunn has begun crafting with Superman and the upcoming Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow films. While many fans would like to see Robert Pattinson crossover with Corenswet’s Kal-El, from where we are now it does not seem entirely feasible leading many fans to believe that we will in fact be receiving another new Batman while the Reeves/Pattinson franchise is still releasing content over in their own version of Gotham.
Brandon Sklenar has apparently been on the top of fans lists to play Bruce Wayne for quite a while now, and while I don’t have strong personal opinions on it and genuinely believe they should be going for an actor with a little more name recognition (I had to Google who this guy was when I first saw the Twitter updates if we’re being totally honest here), I can understand the fancast. It also bodes well that when Gunn cast Corenswet as Superman I also had absolutely no idea who the actor was, so that might just be what they are going for over at DC Studios. In the past Batman has pretty much always been played by a hugely recognizable name on the bigscreen (Keaton, Clooney, Kilmer, Bale, Affleck, and Pattinson in that list) with possibly Christian Bale having the least amount of name recognition at the time of being cast. That says a lot for the pedigree of actor that typically earns the right to wear the cowl. However, that hasn’t always been the case with Superman. Prior to Corenswet, we received both Henry Cavill and Brandon Routh as some of the most recent actors to portray the character and neither actor had overwhelmingly strong name renegotiation on the same level of Batman actors at the time. At this point, this really could go either way.
Batman the Brave and the Bold is Gunn’s planned version of Batman and is said to be a story about Bruce Wayne and his adopted son Damian Wayne, the fourth Robin in the Bat-family after Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, and Tim Drake. The Brave and the Bold is the name of the popular Grant Morrison run of the character in the comics, and will heavily involve the entirety of the Bat-family as well as the League of Assassins. While we have gotten versions of the League of Assassins in both the Christopher Nolan Dark Knight trilogy and the CW’s Arrowverse, the Bat-family itself is something that has not been extensively explored in film. The foundation to explore more members was set in movies such as Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice for a potential Ben Affleck led film, but all of that went south when the Snyderverse imploded. As it stands, the best exploration of the full Bat-family I can think of came to us in the HBO Max Series Titans and has never truly been a focus of a theatrical release.
For now, all of this is strictly speculation and a small detail like this doesn’t point to anything definitively. It is, however, fun to think about and it does seem like a strange coincidence that David Corenswet decided to follow Sklenar without any other obvious reason. In the past, there have been instances of actors or directors following another actor or director that has led to eventual casting reveals so it is not something we can rule out entirely. For now, however, it is nothing more then speculation and just adds fuel to the fancast fire. We have received very little information on The Brave and the Bold as of the last few months with the studio firmly focused on Supergirl and Lanterns, and with rumors picking up steam around Matt Reeves’ The Batman 2, it would seem strange for Gunn to create a conflict of interest within his own studio by trying to overstep the current Batman films. If anything, this creates speculation in the back of fans minds and at this point and time I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s all Corenswet was actually going for with this move.
Do you think Brandon Sklenar would be a good choice for Bruce Wayne? Who else do you want to see in the role for James Gunn’s version of Batman? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments!
