5 Best Actors To Replace Ben Affleck As Batman In James Gunn’s DC Universe

If you’re DC Studios, the film, television, and video game company tasked with exploiting the massive roster of DC Comics characters for our entertainment and their financial gain, you obviously want your excitable fanbase focused right now on what’s to come rather than what’s been — because outside of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy and Patty Jenkins’ “Wonder Woman” (not, it must be stressed, her “Wonder Woman 1984”), Todd Phillips’ “Joker” (we’ll get to its sequel in a moment), and Matt Reeves’ “The Batman,” what DC Studios (former DC Films) has been is a complete and totally aimless disaster. When it handed the creative reins over to Zack Snyder after the somewhat underwhelming blockbuster success of “Man of Steel” (the $225 million-plus production topped out at $668 million worldwide, far short of Nolan’s billion-dollar smashes “The Dark Knight” and “The Dark Knight Rises”), it committed to a dreary run toward a “Justice League” that, even in its director’s cut, was strangely joyless.

Snyder’s run had its supporters (ahem), but the box office reflects an overall enthusiasm deficit compared to the miraculous, masterfully orchestrated Marvel Cinematic Universe run of 2008’s “Iron Man” to 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame.” Factor in the brand spankin’ new failure of Todd Phillips’ “Joke Folie à Deux,” a critical and commercial flop that browbeat the first film’s legion of fans into an aggrieved frenzy, and what’s to come can’t get here soon enough.

DC Studios’ hard reboot begins on the big screen on July 11, 2025, when James Gunn’s “Superman” debuts the initial “Gods and Monsters” phase of his superhero reign (he’s now running the studio with Peter Safran). Official details have been meted out in tantalizingly brief slivers. Aside from casting, Gunn has cited the work of Grant Morrison as an influence on his Superman, Green Lantern, and Batman portrayals, but we’ve yet to get a sense of how the “Guardians of the Galaxy” director will wed the writer’s work to his sensibilities.

When it comes to his portrayal of Batman, the marquee character of DC Studios (in terms of box office), we do know this: Gunn’s going to team the Caped Crusader with Damian Wayne’s Robin, i.e. Bruce Wayne’s son with Talia al Ghul. Over the first 10 years of his life, Talia had Damian trained as a world-class assassin. She did not, however, tend to his emotional development, which makes him a handful for the comparatively meticulous Bruce.

A hard reboot means new actors across the board, so Gunn is bidding farewell to Ben Affleck’s Batman –- which is sad in that he’s a fine actor who never got the chance to leave his mark on the character. Given that we know the entire cast of “Superman” and just learned Aaron Pierre will play John Stewart opposite Kyle Chandler’s Hal Jordan in the Gunn-connected HBO series “Lanterns,” comic book fans are understandably in full-on fan-casting mode with regards to Bruce Wayne/Batman in Andy Muschietti’s in-development “The Brave and the Bold.”

Since we expect to get a Batman before a Robin, I’m going to throw out five actors who’d be bang-on casting for a Bruce confronted with a young killing machine who wants to be his dad’s sidekick, but isn’t so hot on pops’ no-killing rule. These are ranked in order of preference.