We’ve been hearing a lot of rumours over the past year about the big screen multiverses being constructed by both Warner Brothers and Marvel with some of their upcoming comic book movies. Marvel has been developing Sony’s next Spider-Man movie as a key crossover event that will apparently bring back heroes and villains from previous non-MCU Spider-Man movies. On the DC side, their upcoming Flash movie will be based on the Flashpoint storyline and both Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck are said to be reprising their roles as different versions of Batman in the movie. Now this week we’ve got an interesting little detail to add to that as it appears that Michael Keaton may step up to become the primary Batman in the DC Extended Universe moving forward. Hit the jump for more details.

The news comes courtesy of The New York Times writer Brooks Barnes, who did a piece on DC Films president Walter Hamada stating that WB’s plans include “two different film sagas involving Batman — played by two different actors — running at the same time.” Someone followed up with Hamada on Twitter for clarification and this was his response:

Keaton

— Brooks Barnes (@brooksbarnesNYT) January 2, 2021

Of course, this implies that there is still a cohesive plan for the DCEU moving forward, which seemed to fall apart somewhat after the failure of Justice League. Movies like Aquaman, Shazam, Wonder Woman 1984 and Birds of Prey technically remain a part of that loose continuity, but Joker experimented outside that boundary. It is unclear if Robert Pattinson’s The Batman will stay separate, but right now it sounds like it will.

So what does it mean for Keaton to become the official Batman in the DCEU? We don’t know if he will star in any movies himself or if he will just be a supporting character, but there are certainly plenty of storylines with an older Batman that they could tap into (Batman Beyond being one of the most obvious). When Michael Keaton’s casting was announced back in June, it was being reported that he had a deal for multiple movies so this seems to be make a bit more sense now. What do you think it means? Are you excited to see Michael Keaton take on a more permanent role as Batman again?