The MIchael Keaton Multiverse?

 

Everything happens somewhere... but somethings happen in more than one universe apparently.  

Spoilers ahead, especially if you haven't seen the Flash movie yet.  

I love identifying which universe everything happens in, but sometimes that's not such an easy task if I try to place everything in one particular spot.  I came across this with Scooby-Doo, thus I wrote the Scooby-Doo Multiverse with multiple timelines.  The one consistency of those timelines was the original Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, which seemed to take place in nearly every timeline, which diverged after that series.  (Most of those timelines but not all also included the New Scooby-Doo Movies). 

So Batman (1989) is a similar situation it appears.

Let's start at the beginning.  

In 1989, Tim Burton rebooted the Batman franchise with a smash hit film starring Michael Keaton.  This movie was followed by a sequel, Batman Returns.  And then Joel Schumacher took over and recast Val Kilmer as Batman in another sequel, Batman Forever, and then the series wrapped up with Batman and Robin, which recast Batman again with George Clooney.

In addition to those four films, there is also the film Catwoman, which seems unconnected, except for one scene where Halle Berry's character is shown pictures of previous Catwomen, which includes Michelle Pfeiffer as Selena Kyle from Batman Returns.

The Batmobile from this film series appeared in a cameo appearance in an episode of Lois and Clark:  The New Adventures of Superman, which was airing around the time of those films, implying a shared reality.  In Batman and Robin, Batman mentions the existence of Superman.  

There was also a Diet Coke commercial tied into the film series.  

So we can consider this the original universe, from which all others could draw from, as we'll explore below.  

In 2019, the Arrowverse had a major crossover called Crisis on Infinite Earths.  In it, several other DC properties were shown to exist within the same multiverse as the Arrowverse (Earth-1).  Earth-89 was shown to be a universe that was implied to be the universe of the original 1989 film.  The reporter Knox appeared, and the Danny Elfman score played, as the anti-matter was destroying Earth-89.  However, this is not actually the universe of the original film.  Knox is holding a newspaper that reads that the Joker has been captured by the Batman.  So Batman is still active in 2019 (important later on), and the Joker did not die as he did at the end of the 1989 film.  

In 2021, there was a Batman'89 comic book, which lasted six issues, and was a continuation of the first two films, ignoring the other films.  Later, there was a crossover book that crossed Batman'89 with the Superman'78 comics, which was a continuation of the Christopher Reeve films (and the Supergirl film).  This universe that contained both Batman'89 and Superman'78 has officially been deemed as part of the comic book DC Multiverse as Earth-789.  In the Crisis on Infinite Earths comics tie-ins, we learned that both the pre-Crisis and New 52 DC Universes were also part of the Arrowverse multiverse, So Earth-89 and Earth-789 are part of the same muliverse, but since the Joker did die on Earth-789, they are not the same reality.  (Sometimes the same reality can go by different labels, for instance, DC Comics called the New 52 universe Earth-0 or Prime Earth, but the Arrowverse calls it Earth-N52.)  

So now there's the new Flash movie, a take on Flashpoint.  The Flash travels to an alternate timeline that appears to be the timeline in which Batman (1989) and Batman Returns probably happened.  I had hoped to identify it as Earth-89 or Earth-789, but it's neither.  It's its own thing.  

Okay, so here I'm going to warn about spoilers a second time.  You've been warned twice now.  It's on you.  

The Flashpoint portion of the film takes place in 2013.  It's during the period in which Man of Steel took place.  

This cannot be Earth-89 because, spoilers, spoilers, spoilers, Batman dies in 2013.  Batman is still active in 2019 on Earth-89.  Also, in Flashpoint, Zod wins, and Earth is terraformed into New Krypton.  But Crisis affected other realities in other time periods.  For instance, Earth-18 was still in the old west.  So perhaps the Crisis hit Earth-89 before 2013.  Knox of Earth-89 was much older so it was at least recently a few years within the 2019 time frame.  Batman of Flashpoint had been retired for years, with his hair and beard grown out.  So he would not have been active during the Crisis.

Also, Earth-89 may have been destroyed by the Crisis.

But what about Earth-789?  Impossible.  On Earth-789, Superman, Zod and Supergirl existed quite differently than in Flashpoint.  Also, the timeline of the Christopher Reeves films appears in the Flash as an alternate timeline.  

So that means we have at least four different realities in which the 1989 film took place (one in which the film ended differently).  

So spoilers, and I really mean spoilers....

After the Flash returns to "the original timeline", he finds it's now a new altered timeline.  The DCEU has been replaced by the DCU (which isn't confusing at all).  One of the alterations is that George Clooney now plays Bruce Wayne.

So is this the universe in which Batman and Robin takes place?  Does that make the new DCU a timeline in which Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Batman and Robin, Catwoman, Lois and Clark, and a Diet Coke Commercial exists?  I'm sure James Gunn will straighten this all out in future movies.