Ben Affleck and Geoff Johns to Write the Next BATMAN Movie; Affleck to Direct

The big Comic-Con panel for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice hasn't even happened yet and we have some big Batman news. In addition to reprising his role of Batman, Ben Affleck will co-write the next Batman standalone movie and co-write the film with DC Comics' Geoff Johns, according to a Deadline report.

After months of rumors that Affleck will helm the first Batman movie in the new DC Cinematic Universe, that part of the news isn't really all that surprising. From the day that Affleck was announced as the actor who would follow in Christian Bale's footsteps as Batman, there's always been the assumption that Affleck would eventually jump behind the camera too.

The big news in Deadline's report is that Johns is co-writing the movie with Affleck. If you were to pick one person who's guided the current path of DC's comics, it's Johns. Not only is he the definitive Green Lantern writer but he's also currently at the helm of the Superman book itself.

According to Deadline, "Affleck and Johns are well in synch and have more than found their rhythm. In fact, they are likely to turn in a script before the end of the summer, prior to Affleck going off to direct Live by Night in November." Affleck previously postponed Live by Night to play Batman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

The next Batman movie, allegedly titled The Batman, wasn't on Warner Bros.' big list of upcoming superhero movies. Deadline thinks that the studio will reshuffle its lineup in order to make space for this movie.

It was always surprising that a new Batman movie was missing from Warner Bros.' superhero lineup. Perhaps they wanted to see how Batman v Superman turned out or how successful Affleck was as the character. Odds are we'll get some clarity at Comic-Con this weekend.