The Flash's Final Cameo Could Set Up James Gunn's The Brave And The Bold

Contains spoilers for "The Flash"

What many thought would be the last gasp of Zack Snyder's era at Warner Bros.' DC film division may have planted the biggest seed yet for the regime set to replace it. At the end of Andy Muschietti's  "The Flash," Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) manages to revert his time-ravaged universe back to the way it was at the beginning of the story with one major exception. He's stuck with the wrong Batman. After appearing in the original timeline as Ben Affleck and later as "Batman" '89 star Michael Keaton, Bruce Wayne ultimately takes the shape of none other than George Clooney.

The Hollywood icon stars in such beloved projects as "ER," "Gravity," "O Brother, Where Art Thou?," and "Up In The Air," evolving from a small-screen stalwart into one of the most bankable leading men in the film industry — despite the fact that he made what some would call a career misstep by starring in the critically maligned 1997 film "Batman & Robin." Remembered for its cheesy lines of dialogue and an icy turn from Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze, "Batman & Robin" is regarded as one of the worst comic book films made.

If "The Flash" is attempting to be a bridge to the new DC continuity, the stage is seemingly set for Clooney's take on Batman to make a comeback in a big way. While Matt Reeves builds his own gritty, grounded franchise around "The Batman's" Robert Pattinson, DC films CEO James Gunn has promised yet another take on the caped crusader — one that could now be played by an unexpected candidate.

George Clooney's return as Bruce Wayne in James Gunn's DC Universe is surprising to say the least. Not only is "Batman & Robin" a critical failure in and of itself, it thwarted any potential the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher era of "Batman" films had going forward. Its mediocre box office performance combined with its terrible critical reception almost brought down the superhero genre as a whole. 

Even Clooney has acknowledged how poorly "Batman & Robin" turned out, calling the film a waste of money and apologizing for taking the role merely because he thought it would help his career. For him to return to the character that earned him his third-worst Rotten Tomatoes score is almost staggering, especially since he just took a multi-year break from performing in the wake of a series of commercial bombs.

Considering this, it almost seems equal parts poetic and unlikely that Clooney — now 62-years-old — would jumpstart the next act of his career with the character that almost killed it years ago. With all that being true, he could be the perfect choice for James Gunn's "The Brave and the Bold."

Back when James Gunn first revealed his plans for a Batman movie titled "The Brave and the Bold," he stated that it would focus on the Dark Knight's struggles with fatherhood and his relationship with his estranged son, Damian Wayne. In the comics, Damian is the child of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul.

While Michael Keaton's Batman seems a bit too wild to be a believable father and Ben Affleck's is too buried in the remnants of so much unfulfilled Snyderverse lore, George Clooney's Batman is all at once a proven commodity and a blank slate. Despite having a clear image of how the actor might portray Gotham's notorious vigilante, no one knows enough about his cinematic backstory for there to be rigid narrative constraints. 

That seems like the sort of selling point that might see a compromise between Warners and the eagerly inventive Gunn. While returning to the Batcave may be a curious career move for Clooney in 2023, it also might be the most sensible and exciting choice for the future of the "Batman" franchise.

All this being said, Gunn has famously kept his DC ideas under wraps. Even with Clooney's appearance in "The Flash," it just seems out of character for the "Guardians of the Galaxy" director to make such an announcement through a cameo in a movie he neither produced nor directed. In any case, "The Flash" has fans over the moon about future "Batman" films.