Yesterday, our magnificent man with the news eelyajekiM reported that next summer’s Superman reboot Man of Steel may play a vital role in leading into the long-awaited 2015 release of Justice League. If that’s the case, then Warner Bros. has decided to take a page from the Marvel Studios’ playbook and use their solo superhero films to build up to the team-up epic, a formula that proved to be a surefire winner when you look at the grosses for The Avengers.

Anyone who’s been following the development and production of Man of Steel and its dovetailing with the release of The Avengers could have guessed by now that the new Superman, played by Henry Cavill, would naturally be leading the League when they make their big screen bow in three summers, around the same time The Avengers 2 hits movie screens. What wasn’t so obvious was who the studio would pick to play Batman seeing as how the Christopher Nolan-directed Dark Knight trilogy has concluded and Christian Bale doesn’t appear to be willing to be a team player in the Justice League since Nolan won’t be involved.

Drew McWeeny broke a mighty tantalizing little rumor a little while ago at his Motion Captured blog that Warner Bros. may have already found their Batman for Justice League, and his name is Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

This is very interesting (and hopefully true) for many reasons, the most important being that Warners has decided to absorb the universe of the Nolan Bat-films into their JLA paradigm, a move that the filmmaker has been vocally against in the past. At the end of The Dark Knight Rises, Gordon-Levitt’s determined young Gotham cop John Blake had inherited the Batcave and all of its wonderful toys from a retired – and believed deceased – Bruce Wayne. It was assumed that was where the series ended and so far Gordon-Levitt’s name hasn’t been heard much in regards to the Batman reboot Nolan is reportedly producing. If the actor does wind up playing Batman in Justice League, then that means most likely he will be returning in the role of Blake as well, thus maintaining the continuity established by the past three Bat-movies. That makes perfect sense.

With The Dark Knight Rises hitting home video next Tuesday (on Blu-ray, as well as bundled into the Dark Knight Trilogy box set), Man of Steel preparing for take-off next summer, and the League movie aiming at a 2015 release it would behoove Warners to avoid doing a complete reboot of Batman. Since no new Batman movie is on the drawing board for the immediate future it’s not entirely implausible that the studio is using Justice League to gauge audience reaction for the actor they choose to play the Caped Crusader in advance of the iconic crime-fighter’s solo return to the big screen.

McWeeny even speculated on the possibility of Warners and DC following the Marvel movie template and shooting a special end credits surprise for Man of Steel that could serve as further set-up for Justice League. Granted this is just wishful thinking, but if the studio wants a piece of that superhero franchise cash they’re missing out on by dry-docking some of their most valuable comic book movie properties they’re going to have to go all in on this or run back to the CW and hide:

Not to toot my own horn, but I sort of called this months ago. Sort of. I’m sure I wasn’t the first.

The Dark Knight Rises hits DVD and Blu-ray next Tuesday, December 4, 2012. Man of Steel opens on June 14, 2013.

[Source: HitFix]