Kevin Smith (Clerks) believes that if Warner Bros. had brought back Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne rather than introducing Ben Affleck as a newer version of the character, the end result would have been a better Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and an improved DC Extended Universe.
During a recent episode of Fat Man on Batman – the podcast Smith co-hosts with Mark Bernardin - a fan asked Smith whether he thought the DCEU would have fared better if Bale had returned as Batman. In response, Smith admitted that he would have preferred to see Nolan's Caped Crusader in Batman v Superman, as it would have enhanced the movies’ continuity (via ComicBook):
I think I would have preferred it, and"¦this ain’t sh**ting on Affleck, but as a guy who loved the Nolan trilogy when they announced, “Like hey, they’re making Man of Steel and Chris Nolan’s a producer on it”, I was like, “Oh f**k, man, so that means like his Batman and his Superman will coexist.” And then, it ultimately wound up being Zack Snyder’s Superman…Batman instead. I would have preferred the Christian Bale version, just as a continuity freak…Also, it would have been like, “What does everyone b**ch about DC movies doing?” Oh, they’re trying to be like Marvel, and catch up to Marvel. They had it right there. They were like making these f**king Batman movies forever, so now we’re just going to connect them so we’ve got a universe. But instead, they launched a brand new universe.
Of course, Kevin Smith isn't alone in his belief that the Dark Knight trilogy should have been the DCEU’s starting point, because plenty of fans agree. Even after Warner Bros. cast Affleck as Batman v Superman’s Batman, a good number of fans felt that Christian Bale would return anyway, and Affleck's character would turn out to be some sort of supervillain impersonating the Dark Night during his absence.
