Ben Affleck’s Batman will appear as a shadowy background figure in the forthcoming supervillain epic Suicide Squad, according to reports. Umberto Gonzalez, aka El Mayimbe of the influential Latino Review blog, posted a description of the dark knight’s role in the Warner Bros/DC Comics film on Instagram.

“According to sources, in the film Batman is some sort of big boogeyman [sic] that the government REALLY hates,” he wrote. “Get this, prior to the events in Batman V Superman, THE JOKER is the only one to really ever meet him or know him and that’s why he’s so important to Amanda Waller. They have footage of Batman in action which they watch. There is a bit of dialogue where they say Batman is the key to tracking down all ‘the supers’. Very cool stuff.”

Suicide Squad, which is set to be directed by Fury’s David Ayer, was revealed as part of Warner’s slate of 10 movies based on the DC Comics universe last October. The original comic book, inspired by warsploitation fare such as The Dirty Dozen, is about a team of traditional DC supervillains recruited to take on suicide black-ops missions in return for having their sentences commuted.

Viola Davis will play Waller, the organisation’s chief, with Oscar-winner Jared Leto as the Joker and Will Smith as hired assassin Deadshot. The Wolf of Wall Street’s Margot Robbie will play Harley Quinn, with Jai Courtney as Boomerang and Britain’s Cara Delevingne as Enchantress. Joel Kinnaman looks likely to play elite soldier and team leader Rick Flag, replacing Tom Hardy.



Suicide Squad will arrive on the big screen in August 2016, while Zack Snyder’s Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice debuts in March.