As you’ve seen in the trailers, Ben Affleck’s Batman makes an appearance in Suicide Squad, which makes sense given that A. It’s a DC Comics movie and B. It features The Joker — you can’t exactly have a movie starring Batman’s arch-nemesis without including Batman himself. But exactly how does the Dark Knight fit into David Ayer’s super-villain team-up?

Ayer told Collider that he basically “begged” Warner Bros. to let him use Affleck’s Batman in Suicide Squad, though he cautions against the rumors that have been floating around about how the Dark Knight fits into the plot — which he describes as an “incredibly complex story with flashbacks and different convergent storylines.”

As to how Affleck’s role in Suicide Squad differs from his part in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Ayer explains that it’s a matter of perspective:

All the Batman movies have been from Batman’s point of view. He’s the good guy. He’s the hero of his own movie in all the movies we’ve seen. If you look at what Bruce Wayne has done in creating the Batman persona, his idea was to terrorize criminals. It’s sort of psychological warfare against criminals. This wraith that comes in the night and attacks and pulls criminals from society. For the first time, we’re seeing Batman from the point of view of the criminals and he’s freaking scary.

Zack Snyder’s version of Batman was already a bit aggro, so I can’t even imagine how intense he must look to the villains in Suicide Squad. Or maybe he just comes off more like a dad — he’s not mad, he’s just disappointed.

Suicide Squad hits theaters on August 5.

 

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