Ben Affleck wanted to put Batman in Arkham Aslyum in unmade film

Ben Affleck may, sadly, be destined to become the George Lazenby of the Batman universe, his work unloved and politely ignored.

Whether his later career will mirror that of Lazenby's - growing an enormous beard, going sailing around the world for 15 months, then heading back to Australia to do Benson and Hedges ads - is yet to be seen, but a mooted standalone film which would have focused on Batman being inside Arkham Asylum might have salvaged the situation.

"There was a script, but not a loved script," cinematographer Robert Richardson told the Happy Sad Confused podcast.

"[Affleck] was going more into the insanity aspects. So I think you would’ve seen something a little darker than what we’ve seen in the past and more into the individual, who was inside Batman - what element may be sane and what element may actually not be sane.

"So he was entering into a little more of the Arkham [Asylum], as you know, he’s going into where you keep everyone who was bad, everyone that shifted and Batman. And so that whole aspect was sort of, it was very fascinating to go to the darker side of Batman."

Anyone who managed to keep the faith throughout both Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice and Justice League will probably wonder how much darker the visuals of the Bat-verse could go without simply making the screen completely black, but there we go.

Instead, we've got the very exciting prospect of Robert Pattinson working with director Matt Reeves on The Batman.