We have reported extensively on Ben Affleck’s embattled tenure as the Caped Crusader and last week’s news that director Matt Reeves would be ditching Affleck’s The Batman script and starting from scratch didn’t exactly augur well for the actor’s future with the franchise. That said, a recent report from The Hollywood Reporter suggests we might be getting some big news on that front very soon.
An unnamed source told the outlet that Warner Bros. executives are looking for a way to “usher out Affleck’s Batman gracefully” and are hoping to address the change in a future film. If true, the news could make his upcoming Justice League promo appearance at Comic-Con … well … let’s just hope it doesn’t turn out like this.
Studio President Toby Emmerich responded to the rumors by saying simply: “Ben is our Batman. We love him as Batman. We want to keep him in the cowl as long as we can.” Reeves, too, has been vocal in his support for the actor, but we cannot help but feel like the writing has been on the wall for a while now.
First off, Affleck just doesn’t seem too keen on continuing as the character. Second, there is a vocal contingent of anti-Affleck fans out there. Third, with all the smoke floating around, there has to be a fire somewhere. It is also worth noting that Affleck will soon turn 45 and that not every superhero ages as gracefully as Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man.
Since this news is far from confirmed, it’s not worth speculating about a replacement yet, but you imagine that Warner Bros. would target a young, up-and-comer, since the plan is to continue the franchise well into the future. In fact, Reeves suggested that his Batman arc could turn into a trilogy. Throw in the already-announced Justice League Part Two and that could carry the character through the better part of the next decade.
While the whispers do seem to be growing louder, Affleck is still Batman for the time being. Be sure to stay tuned and we will provide updates if and when news breaks.
China just gave Hollywood a cautionary tale about AI filmmaking. Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed as the country's first fully AI-generated movie, hit theaters on October 23 and bombed at the box office.
According to Futurism, the film's reported $1.5 million production budget landed on more than 10,000 screens. Yet it pulled in only about $181,000, averaging roughly $20 per screen, making the budget difficult to recover.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?