So far, all we know about Michael Keaton’s impending return as Batman in The Flash is that he occupies an alternate timeline from DCEU canon, one where Tim Burton presumably saved all of us the trouble of the nightmarish Joel Schumacher era and kept churning out dark and Gothic comic book blockbusters.
The sizzle reel shown at DC FanDome gave us our first tantalizing glimpse at the veteran Dark Knight under the cape and cowl for the first time in 30 years, but deliberately cut away before we got to witness Keaton in all of his rubber and latex glory.
Presumably, we can expect this theme to continue for a long time to come, given that The Flash isn’t coming to theaters until November 2022, and the most likely timeframe for a proper trailer would be around the release of The Batman next March. Understandably, then, Keaton wasn’t having any of it when asked about his contributions to the movie in an interview with The Sunday Times.
“I’ll be frank, I don’t want to talk about it because it takes the fun away,”
Fair enough on the 70-year-old’s part, when he knows just as well as anyone that anticipation is a much better marketing tool than simply giving up the ghost at the first available opportunity. Twelve months is a long time, though, and buzz for The Flash is destined to hit fever pitch long before then.