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Dungeons & Dragons writers reveal their scrapped Flash script featured Bruce Wayne - and not Batman
Exactly one element from The Flash script by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein was kept intact in the final story
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One of the biggest selling points of The Flash movie from 2023 was that Michael Keaton suited up for one last outing as Batman. But what followed when the movie hit theaters was a story where Keaton's Batman was more akin to Michael Caine's character in Children of Men, long white hair and beard included. Eventually, of course, our heroes convince Keaton's Batman (Beaton? Katman? Keatman? I'll stop) to get his act together and join them in their fight against Zod, and the elderly superhero promptly cuts his hair and beard off.
If this story detour ever felt disjointed to you, it's because it's a remnant of a previous draft of The Flash script that was written by powerhouse duo John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. Daley and Goldstein's script featured a grizzled and unkempt Bruce Wayne who had never become Batman. Daley revealed the full details to Mike DeAngelo from The Playlist.
"An element of him and his slightly younger self embarking on the journey together [was what survived in the final version of the film]. Everything else was kind of different," Daley began.
"We had a version where Bruce Wayne never became Batman. And so he was just this sort of billionaire party boy who’s aimless and doesn’t know what to do with his life. And we love the idea of sort of thrusting him into a hero position. That is not in the film. They made it Michael Keaton’s Batman. So not a lot survived," Daley said.
It's a bummer that Daley and Goldstein's script didn't get to be realized onscreen, because the two have proven through films like Game Night ("How can that be profitable for Frito Lay?" is a line I say for no reason alone in my house sometimes) and Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves that they can write funny, engaging stories with ensemble casts. If Daley and Goldstein were up for it, I'd love to see a Justice League film written by them in the spirit of Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, and Kevin Maguire's Justice League International series.
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