Before James Gunn came in swinging his reboot hammer at the DCEU and before The Flash brought back Michael Keaton’s Batman, there was a darker, grittier vision of Gotham that could’ve been—and Jeffrey Dean Morgan was right in the middle of it as Flashpoint Batman.
Promoting The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2, which arrived on AMC in early May 2025, Morgan revealed what many fans had long suspected: Zack Snyder wanted him to be Flashpoint Batman – we’re talking about the angry, full-blown trench coat-wearing, gun-toting Thomas Wayne Batman. The “I watched my son die so now I’m vengeance” version.
“Truthfully, Zack was gonna do more movies,” Morgan explained during an interview with Den of Geek. “And I think there was a time when Flashpoint Batman would have seen these two characters in a much bigger role. And that was part of the Zack world of all of it, and then I never got a chance to do that unfortunately.”
For those unfamiliar, in the Flashpoint timeline, it was Bruce who got shot in Crime Alley, pushing Thomas to become Batman and Martha to descend into madness as the Joker. It’s a twisted reversal that has more emotional weight than most of the multiverse gimmicks Hollywood’s been peddling recently.
And guess who was supposed to play that demented Joker? Lauren Cohan. That’s right—Negan and Maggie going full Batman and Joker. “We both would love for this to happen,” Cohan said in a 2021 ComicBook.com interview. Morgan added, “Lauren and I have talked about that for years. I’d love to see her version come on.”
So, what exactly happened to all the plans for the Flashpoint Batman and Joker story?
Well, Warner Bros. looked at the Spider-Man: No Way Home multiverse hype, saw dollar signs, and decided to bring back Michael Keaton instead. Look, Keaton’s return was nostalgic, sure. But that nostalgia has a shelf life. Most current fans didn’t grow up with his Batman, and let’s be honest—after Bale and Affleck (and now Pattinson), it’s a crowded Batcave.
There’s also the missed emotional core here. A Flash movie with both Affleck’s and Morgan’s Batmen working together in a Knightmare-style timeline, fighting off General Zod’s forces? That writes itself. You’ve got grit, tragedy, and two broken men bonding over their shared pain—and maybe finally healing through it. Imagine the payoff of that letter from Thomas to Bruce at the end of Flashpoint, brought to life in a live-action scene. Goosebumps.
DC had the perfect setup. Two Walking Dead stars with undeniable chemistry. A fan-favourite alternate universe that comic book readers have been begging for. A darker, bolder take on the Batman mythos. And instead, they played it safe—and lost out on what could’ve been one of the most unique Batman stories ever told on screen.
As Jeffrey Dean Morgan himself said, “You never know with DC in particular, but everything is so kind of complicated within the Snyder-verse of it all.”
Yip, complicated is definitely one word to describe the DCEU.
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Tell us, would you have liked to have seen Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Flashpoint Batman?
