In 2016, The Walking Dead’s Jeffrey Dean Morgan appeared briefly in Zack Snyder’s Batman vs. Superman as Thomas Wayne, the father of Batman. The speculation at the time was that Snyder was setting Morgan up to play Batman in the Flashpoint Timeline. For the unfamiliar, in the Flashpoint timeline, Barry Allen (The Flash) travels back in time to save his mother’s life but creates a butterfly effect that gives rise to an alternate timeline where Bruce Wayne is killed instead of his parents, and Thomas Wayne ultimately becomes Batman.
That storyline will be incorporated into next year’s Flash movie from director Andy Muschietti (It), and Jeffrey Dean Morgan would still really like to take on the role of Thomas Wayne, as he told CinePOP this week:
“Look, the top of my list has always been Batman. That’s always been my favorite superhero and talking about Flashpoint has been very fun. I get asked about it a lot. I love the story of Flashpoint. Who knows? Who knows with DC? Who knows how these franchises work? I suppose I probably have a two or three-year window and then I’m gonna be too old. There’s no way. Look, I’m available. Everybody knows I’m available. I say I’m available, I’ve been saying it for five years. We’ll see what happens.”
Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear as though it’s going to happen. “Ever since Zack Snyder walked away, my whole kind of bit in that world has walked away with him,” Morgan told Comicbook.com last year. The possibility seems to have been foreclosed by the casting of another Batman. “Michael Keaton swooped in and took my gig,” Morgan joked.
That’s bad news for Morgan. On the other hand, it should be a blast to see Michael Keaton — who played Batman in Tim Burton’s Batman films in the 1980s — return to play the Caped Crusader. Ben Affleck will also return to play Batman in the film, which hits theaters in November 2022. Meanwhile, Morgan may still yet return to the world of comic books. He’s been rumored for a role in The Boys for a couple of years, while he also told Cinepop, “I like Lobo a lot. I have something maybe cooking and I’ll let you know soon if that turns out to be,”
Morgan can currently be seen as Negan in The Walking Dead, which kicks off its final season — and will hopefully see the death of his character — in August.
Source: CinePop, Comicbook.com