Contrary to what a cleverly truncated version of his remarks had implied, Kevin Smith never claimed that Christian Bale had been approached to reprise his role as Batman in “The Flash”.
WARNING – The article below contains spoilers for “The Flash”, as it revisits one of the surprises at the end of the DC movie. Please move on if you haven’t seen it yet.
It sometimes takes very little for speculative remarks truncated and taken out of context to become news, and Kevin Smith has paid the price in recent days.
In an excerpt from his show Fatman Beyond centered on The Flash, the actor and director claims that Warner begged Christian Bale to resume his role as Batman in the final scene of the film, before having to fall back on George Clooney following the refusal of Christopher Nolan’s Bruce Wayne. What is wrong.
Kevin Smith pronounced these words well, but the montage that circulates online, made with a very relative sense of honesty, omits the passages where he specifies that it is a question of speculation (or even a joke) on his part, and in no way a truth. What the main interested party wished to recall.
(“What’s missing from this excerpt from FatMan Beyond are the moments where I say ‘I think there’s a world in which…’ and ‘I feel like…’ That was just conjecture, not information I had.”)
And the guess in question was: “I think there’s a world where that cameo wouldn’t have been shot like… two weeks ago. I kind of feel like it could have been anybody and that they would have asked Christian Bale for months and months, hoping he gave in.”
The Flash: how this incredible cameo remained secret until the end?
“But he would have refused and they would have changed their tune by choosing to take another Batman, and would have turned to George Clooney.” For a cameo shot in January (and which is the third canned ending for the film), as Kevin Smith makes clear in his reframing tweet. Which, inevitably, reminds us of how legion fake news is.
But this example goes further than the so-called exclusive information of scoopers and other insiders always quick to reveal unverifiable things. In this case, these are truncated and distorted remarks in an attempt to pass speculation developed in humorous mode for the truth about the DC film, visible in our theaters since June 14.