BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Batman May Appear In 'Suicide Squad' Film

Following
This article is more than 9 years old.

Recent news about Warner Bros.' upcoming super-villain team-up film Suicide Squad has focused on the surprise departure of actor Tom Hardy from the film (as first reported by The Hollywood Reporter), and subsequent reports (at Latino Review) that Hardy left the project because his role as Rick Flagg was reduced during rewrites. Today brought an additional story from Latino Review offering details of the film's plot, including that it contains some sort of video recordings of Batman. That, however, is reportedly the extent of the Caped Crusader's presence in Suicide Squad...

Or is it? I've heard for weeks that Batman will appear in Suicide Squad, supposedly in an in-story scene, likely at the end of the film and focused on certain circumstances involving the Joker (which I won't spoil here).

This would set up the Joker as a possible/likely antagonist in the solo Batman movie that's planned in the next few years, and which I've heard will take some inspiration from Frank Miller's comic book series The Dark Knight Returns -- the third issue of which is a story about Batman facing off against an escaped Joker. I'm also told that Gotham City Police Commissioner Ellen Yindel (who replaces James Gordon during the comic book story) is planned for inclusion in the film.

With the script rewrites and casting changes, it's obvious that much is still up in the air about this project, so nothing you hear about what's in the film -- which hasn't even started production yet, remember -- is necessarily set in stone just yet. And of course, rumors about superhero films aren't even a dime a dozen anymore, they're so common the price has dropped to about a nickle these days. A few days ago, Tom Hardy was Rick Flagg, after all, but today not so much. It's also true that many leaks these days appear to be older information finally filtering out, sometimes perhaps intentionally released to throw everybody off the scent of whatever's really developing.

That said, certain things just make a lot of sense for the movie, especially with the Joker's inclusion in the festivities.  And one of the best added-value moves for Warner is to give audiences an added glimpse of Ben Affleck's Batman, whom we'll of course be introduced to earlier in 2016 when he makes his grand cinematic entrance in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. That everybody's favorite dark detective will make some sort of appearance in the film -- be it simply on Waller's collection of news and surveillance footage, in a brief cameo in-story, or via more substantial sequence(s) -- seems inevitable.

So let's talk about how important that added value could be, and how it could translate into an additional box office boost for the film.

Man of Steel took $668 million on the strength of Superman alone. And despite mixed critical reception, the film scored high marks from audiences, earning an A- Cinemascore, and took more than $100 million domestically in DVD and Blu-ray sales. A sequel teaming him up with other superheroes, in a cinema environment where team-ups and world-building projects dominate box office, suggests higher box office right off the bat (no pun intended). With the public awareness the film is setting up a major Justice League movie akin to Marvel's Avengers series, the presumed boost is going to be even larger. Then there's the value of Wonder Woman's first big-screen appearance in cinema history. And Aquaman's. And Cyborg's. And so on.

And Batman. Batman's last two movies are among the three highest-grossing superhero films in history. Batman's film franchise as a whole is one of the most popular and lucrative. Batman comics are among the best selling and most acclaimed. Batmania may have faded recently with the ending of Christopher Nolan's trilogy and the cancellation of some Batman animated series, but the character remains one of the hottest properties in the world.

Now here comes a brand new Batman, meaning the draw won't just be the usual popular draw for Batman, but also the "latest model" appeal. Under the cowl is Ben Affleck, whose star meter is rising dramatically these days after several years of amazing directorial work, a Best Picture Oscar for his film Argo, and his recent huge success in Gone Girl. And this time, Batman is going to appear for the first time alongside Superman, a pairing that audiences and fans have awaited a long time.

Oh, but it's not just a pairing. They're gonna fight, big-time. So there's a whole prize fight aura to the proceedings as well.

When The Avengers took $1.5 billion worldwide in 2012, it shocked everybody. This time, none of us should be shocked at the financial prospects of a huge superhero team-up film featuring some of the most well-known characters in the world meeting on screen for the first time, including one of the most popular and financially successful characters. It all depends on the film being good quality, but I'll argue that even if it's merely "okay" and gets mixed reviews, it's still going to top $1 billion on the sheer scope and historic meaning of it all.

What would an unpopular Batman film look like, from a box office perspective? Well, apparently a low-end Spider-Man box office performance is in the neighborhood of $700 million these days, and Batman is in the same box office tier with the wall-crawler. Back in 1997, Batman & Robin was ravaged by critics and audiences alike, but despite terrible word of mouth and being a great big mess that derailed the entire franchise for nearly a decade, its box office cume in today's dollars would be more than $350 million.

And that was before the modern era of superhero genre domination of cinema, and before Batman had become widely perceived as synonymous with the highest standards of the genre. Consider, too, that today that movie would've opened in an additional 1,000 theaters, pushing its box office easily north of $400 million in relative dollars. No train wreck of such epic proportions is going to happen this time around, of course. In today's market it's more likely that a bottom of the barrel Batman movie that was widely hated and flopped would fall somewhere in the $500 million range worldwide.

Even assuming Batman v Superman suffers mixed reaction from critics and viewers, and is considered the biggest disappointment of the modern Batman-oriented era for WB, if it looks like Spider-Man then just ask yourself how The Amazing Spider-Man 2 would've performed if it had also featured a team-up with Thor (whose last solo film performed close to the same level as Superman's reboot), for example. I suspect we would've seen an additional $100-200 million added to the film's final tally. Now ask yourself how much higher it might've been if the first The Amazing Spider-Man movie had been even more successful and acclaimed. What if it also included some other Marvel heroes we hadn't seen on film before, some who were well known around the world?

Here's another comparison: Imagine a film that is criticized for being overcrowded, for seeming like the studio meddled too much, for not being as magical as everyone hoped, for being underwhelming, and that got mixed critical reviews and modest B-level audience appreciation. Spider-Man 3 overcame all of those problems on the strength of the brand name and being a mega-blockbuster considered a must-see movie the year of its release. It became the highest-grossing entry in the entire Spidey franchise, at $890+ million worldwide, which translates to more than $1 billion in today's dollars. Imagine if it had been in 3D -- it might've added perhaps 20% worldwide to its total, or another $200+ million.

If Batman v Superman is good -- not even great, just set the bar at good -- it should perform at least like one of those Spider-Man examples noted above, putting it in the $1 billion range or better. If it's very good or better, then the numbers will logically trend higher.

Which brings us to coattail effects. Look at the post-Avengers environment in which all of Marvel's other pre-existing solo franchises combined for about 90% higher box office than their previous combined outings' returns (roughly $1.4 billion pre-Avengers to $2.6 billion post-Avengers), not to mention the enormous overperformance of Guardians of the Galaxy. Avengers: Age of Ultron should do massive business this summer, and if it's as good and popular as the previous installment then we can expect another round of coattail effect -- and not just for the Marvel films, but also for Warner's first foray into shared superhero universes with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Tack on some additional box office momentum, then.

And that in turn will create strong coattails coming off of Batman v Superman in 2016, giving a nice added lift to Suicide Squad later that year. If Affleck's Batman is popular (as I suspect he'll be, from all I've heard and seen so far), then his inclusion in Suicide Squad will build on the coattail effect and we could see the villain movie perform akin to a new Marvel franchise launch. What might that look like in box office terms? Let's think about that a moment.

With the likes of Will Smith, Jared Leto, and -- if negotiations go well -- Jake Gyllenhaal attached, and with the Joker appearing as a major character, the film is already looking at likely solid numbers so long as it's at least "fair to good" in quality. (And if Gyllenhaal declines, maybe Warner can talk Tom Cruise into taking the Rick Flagg role -- just imagine the international box office added-value!) As a follow-up to Batman v Superman with all that going for it, it was destined for something in the $400+ million territory anyway. Putting Batman into the picture would bump that up to the $500+ million range, I suspect, maybe higher depending on how good the film turns out to be and how good Leto's performance is as the Joker (seen below in a brilliant photoshop by CocheTheHero at SuperHeroHype).

The bottom line is simple and glaringly obvious: The bigger Batman's footprint in the film, the bigger the box office boost is likely to be. But any appearance at all is of value, and will no doubt feature in the marketing and trailers. Batman and the Joker in the same movie, even if they don't meet this time around, is going to put butts in seats, especially as a setup for a coming solo Batman adventure in which he's likely to hunt down the Joker.

Let me reiterate a few things, just to make sure nobody misunderstands me. First, I've indeed heard that yes, Batman is in Suicide Squad. What I've heard is that he figures into a particular scene regarding the Joker, and from the sounds of it the scene would likely be near the end of the movie and might give us hints about a future solo Batman film. Some other things I heard are vague but similar to a couple of elements mentioned in the Latino Review report, but I won't talk about specific plot points here. And for those of you who listen to my appearances on podcasts at Batman on Film, Modern Myth Media, and recently Shanlian On Batman, yes this is the mysterious "other" upcoming film appearance by Affleck's Batman that I've hinted about for a few weeks.

My take on this is simple: It's a movie with the Joker, so Batman showing up in some fashion makes sense, and so the value-added element of his inclusion is justified. Batman fans will be getting five -- yes, FIVE -- movies with Batman appearing in some capacity, from 2016 through 2020. But in three of those, he'll be teamed up with Superman and other superheroes, while in two of them he'll be "alone" to varying degrees (although in his solo film, he apparently will be joined by some of his supporting bat-family, including probably one or two of the masked variety).

What do you think about Batman showing up in the Suicide Squad film, dear readers? "Too much Batman," or "There's no such thing as too much Batman" for you? Sound off in the comments below!

All box office figures and tallies based on data via Box Office Mojo and TheNumbers.

Follow me on Twitter, on Google+, and on Quora.  Read my blog.