When it was first announced that Batman would play a major role in the Man of Steel follow-up Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, audiences reasonably assumed that Warner Bros. would be forging ahead with a new iteration of the character despite the fact that Christopher Nolan had only just wrapped up his take on Batman with The Dark Knight Rises. Batman is one of the most iconic characters in pop culture history, so obviously Warner Bros. wasn’t just going to sit on that character forever—and then with the casting of Ben Affleck as Batman/Bruce Wayne things got even more interesting.

Rumors swirled for some time that Affleck may or may not be directing his own Batman movie as part of the DC Extended Universe, and confirmation finally came earlier this year along with the news that Affleck is working on the script with DC Films co-head Geoff Johns. But when, exactly, can we expect this new Batman movie to be in theaters?

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Image via Warner Bros.

When Collider’s own Steve Weintraub was on the set of Justice League last week along with a group of reporters, Affleck was asked about the status of said Batman movie, and he gave a promising update:

“I think they have a date for it. Although, I don’t know if I would necessarily be able to make that date because I don’t have a script that’s ready yet. So that’s my—my timetable is I’m not going to make a movie until there’s a script that I think is good because I’ve been on the end of the things when you make movies when you have a script that’s not good yet and it doesn’t pan out.” [laughs]

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Image via Warner Bros.

Affleck is well aware not only of the iconography of the character but also the danger of rushing into production on blockbusters to meet a release date, and the Oscar-winning Argo filmmaker is taking special care into ensuring that this Batman is the best version of the film he could possibly make:

“I have a script, we’re still working on it, and I’m not happy enough with it yet to actually go out there and make a Batman movie, for which I have the highest of standards, I would say. That’s something that would have to pass a very high bar for me. It’s not just like, ‘Yeah, that might be fun, let’s go try this out.’”

In the meantime, Affleck is plenty busy. He’s in post-production on his long-awaited Argo follow-up Live by Night, also for Warner Bros., and the DC Extended Universe is certainly robust with Wonder Woman serving as a precursor to next November’s release of Justice League, which will be followed by The Flash and Aquaman. So while WB may have an internal date in mind for Affleck’s Batman, he’s not the type to rush these things, and he certainly has the clout to say “Hold your horses” if WB starts to get impatient. Long story short: the standalone Batman movie is probably Affleck’s next directorial effort, but it won’t move forward to production until Affleck is 100% happy with the script.

For much more of our Justice League set visit coverage, peruse the links below:

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Image via Warner Bros.
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Image via Warner Bros.