New Actor to Play Batman; Tom Brady is a Good Actor; Mandalorian Season 3 Preview

Tom Brady retires from football just as he proves he can act onscreen; yet another Batman actor is coming; a look at The Mandalorian Season 3. All in today’s Movie News Rundown.

Tom Brady, Movie Star: The GOAT’s retirement from football today closely coincides with the release of the sweet new comedy 80 for Brady, in which he proves, in a surprisingly moving scene with Lily Tomlin, that he can actually act. Here’s our talk with 80 for Brady director Kyle Marvin about getting Tom Brady in character as Tom Brady.

A Different Batman: New DC Films chief James Gunn detailed his 8- to 10-year plan yesterday for getting the DC Expanded Universe aligned. Instead of offering multiple, conflicting storylines, with different actors sometimes playing the same roles, all the films, TV shows and games will exist in one universe — with some exceptions. To wit: Both the Todd Phillips Joker films with Joaquin Phoenix and the Matt Reeves Batman films with Robert Pattinson will be part of something called Elseworlds.

What Now? The “Elseworlds” concept is a cool deep cut for comics fans — DC Elseworlds stories are tales that exist outside of the normal DC Universe, like the very scary graphic novel Gotham by Gaslight, in which Batman battled Jack the Ripper, and the magnificent Superman: Red Son, in which the Man of Steel landed in the Soviet Union instead of Kansas.

What Does This Have to Do With a New Batman? Since Robert Pattinson is now officially an “Elseworlds” Batman, it figures that the normal DC universe will need a brand-new Batman. “The introduction of the DCU’s Batman is the Brave and the Bold,” Gunn explained. “The Brave and the Bold is a story of Batman and his actual son, Damian Wayne.” As in the comics, Damian Wayne is Bruce Wayne’s son, but Bruce Wayne was unaware of this, for many years, which means their relationship is tricky. Damian grows up to be “a little assassin who Batman tries to get in line,” Gunn explained.

Here’s Gunn: Explaining all this.

May I Editorialize: Obviously it should be Tom Brady, right? [Ducks, dodges rotten fruit.]

I Know I Know: Many Ben Affleck fans will not doubt call for him to return as Batman, but please bear in mind that Ben Affleck is from Boston and would probably also be cool with Tom Brady playing Batman. And please also note that Gunn said “introduce,” not “reintroduce.”

Also: Gunn sounds pretty excited about a new Swamp Thing movie, too, and The Hollywood Reporter says James Mangold is in talks to direct. Mangold tweeted this late at night:

Huh? It’s a picture of Swamp Thing. Swamp Thing, first introduced in a 1971 comic book, was the subject of a 1982 film directed by Wes Craven that I should really check out. It was also a short-lived 2019 series on the DC Universe app that is now available to stream. The swamp thing is a murky swamp creature antihero who goes on grim misadventures. James Mangold, of course, is about to release Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the last film to feature Harrison Ford in the iconic role of Dr. Henry Jones.

Anyhoo: In other IP news, there’s a new featurette out about Season 3 of The Mandalorian. As you may know, “featurette” is French for “an ad disguised as a short documentary, and also there are too many Star Wars shows.” And while we agree with this definition, we also love The Mandalorian, so here you go.

The Mandalorian Season 3 featurette.

Main image: Robert Pattison, formerly the new Batman, now the Elseworlds Batman.