Well, this isn’t how any of us wanted Comic-Con to start! It’s been revealed today that Warner Bros. is planning to “usher out” Ben Affleck’s Batman from the DC Extended Universe, news which doesn’t come as a huge surprise but is still massively upsetting.

A reason for this isn’t given, but studio chief Toby Emmerich says, “Ben is our Batman. We love him as Batman. We want to keep him in the cowl as long as we can.” The trades sources, however, say Affleck is on his way out and the plan is to address that in a future movie with a different character – Nightwing perhaps – taking over the cape and cowl.

Things could change, of course, but they don’t believe Affleck will want to stick around for what Matt Reeves envisions as a trilogy of movies, especially as he’s closing in on 50.

So, why is Affleck moving on from Batman? We don’t know right now but Affleck dropped out as director and his screenplay was scrapped by Reeves. That probably didn’t rub him up the right way and the embarrassment of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’s reviews can’t have helped matters either. The actor/director having to split his time between Live by Night and these DC Comics movies may have also contributed to its negative reception.

We may end hear more about Affleck’s future as Batman at tomorrow’s Warner Bros. panel at Comic-Con but for now, it appears as if he’s hanging up the cape and cowl for good.