Ben Affleck

Today’s rumor is somewhat out of left field, and yet entire plausible once you consider it: According to a suspicious tweet posted by Josh Gad, the actor and recent star of Beauty and the Beast might be playing The Penguin in The Batman. And while an actor sharing a photo of a fictional character seemingly at random could mean just about anything, there is some additional evidence to support his potential involvement.

Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck have officially filed for divorce.

'I'm lucky to have the love of my family and friends,' Affleck said in an emotional post.

They couple first announced they'd split in June 2015.

The couple first announced they were splitting in 2015.

Like any job, writing about the latest news in the world of entertainment can wear on you after long enough, so you gotta appreciate the little pearls of amusement where you can get them. Personally, watching the latest solo Batman project fall apart in slow motion has been a perverse thrill over the past couple of months: star Ben Affleck was gonna direct (maybe) the film titled The Batman, then he was definitely gonna direct it, then he backpedaled a little bit, then he requested that people stop asking him about it, then he face-planted onto the sidewalk with the costly flop Live By Night, and then look at that, he wasn’t taking the director’s chair after all. The indignities kept coming, as Warner Bros. ordered sweeping rewrites to this floundering project before landing Planet of the Apes remake maestro Matt Reeves to fill the directorial vacuum.

These are dark days for the Dark Knight.

We ranked 75 years of Batman movies in one list.

With Ben Affleck no longer directing the solo Batman movie (guess he finally watched Live by Night, huh?), the search is on for a new director to take his place. Amid various reports regarding Affleck’s exit from the director’s chair was an interesting tidbit of news you might have missed: The screenplay for The Batman, penned by Affleck with DC’s own Geoff Johns, received a rewrite from Chris Terrio.

A story, told in headlines: Here’s us on December 18, reporting on Ben Affleck’s voicing of slight misgivings about his tentative gig as the director of the new Batman solo film: