the batman

Okay Batfleck, We’ve Found Your Next Director: La La Land’s Damien Chazelle

Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Ben Affleck’s stand-alone Batman movie needs some love. Now that Affleck has decided against directing the beleaguered Batman, the movie is left without a visionary in the director’s chair. But Moonlight director Barry Jenkins has an idea for someone he thinks is perfectly suited to give a little jazz-infused TLC to the movie: the guy behind La La Land, Damien Chazelle. In an L.A. Times roundtable with the Oscar race’s heavy hitters, Moonlight director Barry Jenkins fantasized about what could happen if he and his competition (Chazelle, and Manchester by the Sea director Kenneth Lonergan) were given bigger budgets. “I watch La La Land and I think, ‘I’d like to see this guy rescue the DC universe,’” Jenkins said. Imagine it: Ben Affleck step-ball-changing his way through a battle with Two-Face, with Robin on piano. Chazelle played it cool and didn’t say whether he’d be into it, but Lonergan joked that he’s ready to be plucked to direct a big studio tentpole. Batman by the Sea, anyone? There would probably be a lot of crying in that one.

Damien Chazelle Needs to Direct the Next Batman Movie