Holy Multiplicity! Does the DC Extended Universe have room for three Caped Crusaders?

Michael Keaton and Robert Pattinson will both take on the role of the Caped Crusader in separate Warner Bros. film sagas in 2022, and Ben Affleck will wear the cowl one more time the same year, according to a New York Times interview with DC Films President Walter Hamada.

To make all the story lines work, DC Films will introduce movie audiences to a comics concept known as the multiverse: parallel worlds where different versions of the same character exist simultaneously. Coming up, for instance, Warner Bros. will have two different film sagas involving Batman — played by two different actors — running at the same time.

Some of this information was released a week ago,  but the interview had fans buzzing after Times reporter Brooks Barnes confirmed that Keaton was returning on Twitter in an exchange with reporter Nestor Betancor.

“Based on your Hamada piece, some have interpreted that WB is doing two franchises starring Batman with Pattinson, one with a new actor,” Bentancor asked. “Is that correct, or you were referring to Keaton as a second Batman, being part of a non-Batman-centric saga?” Barnes responded with one word: “Keaton.” 

Barnes later clarified that Keaton is only expected to appear as Batman in one movie.

Robert Pattinson, known best as sparkly vampire Edward Cullen in the Twilight saga, stars in The Batman, coming out in 2022. This film exists in a universe dubbed Earth 2, and there, familiar DC characters will be played by different actors. 

Another film universe, Earth 1, will feature actors who are continuing to play characters they’ve already portrayed, including Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman. So what happens to Pattinson’s Batman on one Earth doesn’t also happen to Batman in the other timeline.

Keaton and Ben Affleck will both play Batman in the 2022 film The Flash, which Hamada says will link the two universes. Keaton returns to the role he played on screen in 1989 and 1992, and the film will supposedly reveals what Keaton’s Batman has been up to in the intervening decades.

Details weren’t revealed on how the universes will be linked and if the Batmen will meet up, but it is rumored to be connected to the Flashpoint storyline. Marvel reportedly has a similarly knotty plot planned for its upcoming Spider-Man movie.

“I don’t think anyone else has ever attempted (the multiverse concept on screen),” Hamada told The Times. “But audiences are sophisticated enough to understand it. If we make good movies, they will go with it.”

The three Batmans all represent different generations. Pattinson is 34, Affleck is 48, and Keaton is 69. As for who is the best Batman, according to Keaton, it’s definitely him,