Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice opened with Thomas and Martha Wayne getting gunned down in front of their son for what felt like the 100th time. Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohen played the roles of Bruce Wayne’s parents, and although their time in the movie was brief, Snyder was thinking ahead to when they would return in a potential Flashpoint movie.
While speaking with Den of Geek, Morgan confirmed that he was supposed to return as the Flashpoint version of Thomas Wayne. “Truthfully, Zack was gonna do more movies,” he said. “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.”
In the Flashpoint comic series, Barry Allen alters the timeline by traveling back in time to prevent the Reverse-Flash from murdering his mother. This decision creates a drastically different reality—one where Bruce Wayne is the one killed in Crime Alley, not his parents. As a result, Thomas Wayne takes up the mantle of Batman, while Martha Wayne, driven mad by grief, descends into madness and becomes a horrifying incarnation of The Joker.
Andy Muschietti’s The Flash was influenced by the Flashpoint story, and although it featured several versions of Batman, Thomas Wayne was not among them. The Snyderverse/DCEU ended soon after, and a (mostly) complete reboot is set to launch with James Gunn’s Superman. I think Morgan would have made a fantastic Flashpoint Batman, but sadly, it wasn’t meant to be.
Morgan can currently be seen starring alongside Cohen in The Walking Dead: Dead City. The second season premiered on AMC earlier this month. The show sees “Maggie and Negan traveling into a post-apocalyptic Manhattan long ago cut off from the mainland. The crumbling city is filled with the dead and denizens who have made New York City their own world full of anarchy, danger, beauty, and terror.“
