The Hollywood Reporter published a big article today about newly appointed head of DC Films at Warner Bros., Walter Hamada. Their sources says that Hamada “walked into a shitshow, and he’s trying to clean it up.” He’s spent his first fix months in his new role going over all of the projects that have been in development, and The Hollywood Reporter has updates on some of them.

First, The Batman. The Hollywood Reporter says that director and writer Matt Reeves turned in the first act of his script at the end of May. It features a younger version of Batman and likely will not star Ben Affleck. Warner Bros. wouldn’t comment when asked to confirm that news.

Next is an update on The Joker. No not the Joker movie that Jared Leto is starring in, the other one that Todd Phillips is directing and will star Joaquin Phoenix. That movie is expected to start filming this fall and for a small budget of $55 million. While that’s a lot of money, it’s nothing compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars superhero movies usually cost to make. This Joker movie is standalone and not part of the DCEU, and The Hollywood Reporter hears that the new label for the standalone movies could be “DC Dark” or “DC Black”.

Finally, The Hollywood Reporter says that The Flash is finally seeing some traction with new directors John Francis Daly and Jonathan Goldstein. That movie is expected to start filming in early 2019, though the tone has been changed. It will no longer feature “somber themes” like the previous versions of the script did.

Hamada does not want to date movies too far in advance, according to The Hollywood Reporter. That’s something that’s come back to bite Warner Bros. in the past (remember all the movies and dates they announced in 2014?). “Walter has a specific design for the universe,” a source said. “He has a plan.”

Hopefully AT&T is on board with those plans when they take over Time Warner for $85.4 billion, which a judge just approved yesterday.

SOURCE: The Hollywood Reporter