The Abridged Script
FADE IN:
EXT. GOTHAM CITY
THE BATFLECK zooms through the streets chasing a getaway vehicle full of criminals while trying not to crash his bike like a PUTZ. While thinking about the subject of criminals, he suddenly remembers EZRA MILLER.
THE BATFLECK
(on earpiece)
Ezra, you’re needed in Gotham. One of Falcone’s kids has stolen a super-deadly virus from a lab as part of some plandemic, #LabLeak, #ArrestFauci, #RFKJr, #JoeRogan
WHIZRA MILLER
Let me guess, you need me to use my super-speed to get back the virus before they can release it?
THE BATFLECK
What? No. For some reason I’m doing that.
(narrowly avoids being bricked by a semi)
Look, I can’t risk the virus getting into the Gotham river, so I’m going to attack them precisely when they are on the bridge, thereby maximizing the chances of making the vehicle careen into the river.
(explodes bike, harpoons vehicle, ice skates on the asphalt)
Sure I could just let them get away and then use my master detective skills to trace them and quietly steal it back, since that’s what I did the last time this exact thing happened with Kryptonite but--
WHIZRA MILLER
BEN! What do you need me to do?
THE BATFLECK
Oh right, sorry. The gain-of-function research laboratory was attached to Gotham General so the entire building is set to collapse and there’s a comically Rube Goldbergian series of death traps straight out of Final Destination threatening to do every dead baby joke from the late 90’s internet.
(blows up gasoline tanker, interferes with 8 lanes of highway traffic, causes mass casualties)
Only you can save the babies with your super speed, and only the babies because nobody else is in danger in the entire collapsing hospital full of injured and sick people.
WHIZRA MILLER
I’m on it, Ben. Let me just eat my weird raisin banana sandwich or whatever the fuck nonsense I just ordered because it seemed like something Sheldon Cooper would eat and that's how to write autistic people without making it a whole thing.
JEREMY IRONS
(on earpiece)
There’s no time for that, Ezra! Hi, it’s me Jeremy Irons, I’m still collecting paychecks in this franchise, too. Until James Gunn tells security to turn all of us away at the door it’s all-you-can-eat at the crap buffet and this little piggy is hungry, slurp slurp!
WHIZRA MILLER speeds to GOTHAM to save babies as a much-needed reminder that WHIZRA is the protagonist of the film, and you’re supposed to be rooting for them rather than hoping they accidentally run face-first into a WILE E. COYOTE TRAP.
THE BATFLECK
Ezra! I need your help again! We did careen off the bridge after all. Don't worry, the virus is secure because I held the thief's hand as he fell and it didn't just rip his entire arm off somehow. But now my bat-grappling-gun is very inconveniently malfunctioning because I don’t have a Morgan Freeman in this stupid shitty universe!
Suddenly, WONDER GADOT shows up, the camera panning upwards from below her because you know why.
WONDER GADOT
Sorry I’m late, I was running behind from filming my Fast X cameo because my Shazam 2 cameo shoot went long.
WONDER GADOT pulls BATFLECK and PROBABLY SOME DUMBASS ESOTERIC COMIC BOOK CHARACTER WITH A CORNY BAT-VILLAIN NAME LIKE “HOLIDAY KILLER” up to safety.
THE BATFLECK
Thanks for showing up. It’s actually kind of fun seeing us all together doing superhero stuff in color, it’s a shame it took 14 full films to give us one enjoyable Justice League sequence right as the franchise is being rebooted.
WHIZRA MILLER
Well that’s only if you count the Snyder Cut as a separate movie, otherwise this production is lucky 13. Speaking of Snyderverse fans, did I mention I’m an adult virgin? Oh god why did I say that?
WONDER GADOT
Oh that's because you're touching my lasso of truth, which also made Batfleck here do a reddit gag about stopping crime by eradicating poverty even though he mostly fights aliens. Anyway, I've got to run to my weekly meeting with Patty Jenkins where we pretend Wonder Woman 3 is still happening, bye!
(flies away, making the use of the lasso pointless)
WHIZRA MILLER
I should be getting back, too. This thing on my arm that we’ll never reference again is telling me I need to eat or I won’t be able to use my super-speed. If my food isn’t ready yet then it literally took about 12 minutes for a human being with two functioning arms working in a sandwich restaurant to put peanut butter on cold bread.
THE BATFLECK
Bye, Whizra.
(pause)
Alright, is that it? Am I done? I did the blue suit, I did the bat-cycle, we dropped the voice modulator thing, I gave Wonder Woman a needlessly sexually-charged greeting for Animated Series fans. Can I go back to basketball movies now or do I have to be in that Aquaman bullshit, too?
INT. CENTRAL CITY
EZRA enters their apartment and finds a manilla envelope containing a very important FLASH DRIVE oh just got that, ha ha.
EZRA MILLER
(on phone with Ron Livingston)
Dad... my friend Ben Affleck digitally descrambled the security footage of you buying tomatoes at the grocery store the day mom was murdered. It looks like Billy Crudup on tape, your alibi won’t check out.
RON LIVINGSTON
That’s fine, kiddo. You did your best. I’ve come to terms with being wrongfully convicted of murder despite having a son who’s a police forensic scientist. Now tell ol’ pops about this hard-hitting investigative journalist you're dating before I get the electric chair for nobody being able to figure out who killed my wife.
EZRA MILLER
No, dad! I won’t give up! There’s still time, I just need to experience an extremely vivid FLASHBACK oh just got that, ha ha.
EZRA puts on their suit and runs all the way to their childhood home to remember a thing that happened there.
MARIBEL VERDÚ
Ezra, it’s me, your mother. I am an extremely famous Spanish actress that has been nominated for awards in Spain 22 times, I’m very excited to see why they brought me in to play this pivotal role.
RON LIVINGSTON
Looks like you’re here to cook Italian food and then get stabbed.
MARIBEL VERDÚ
What?
(cooks Italian food)
Oh no!
(gets stabbed)
RON LIVINGSTON
Hurry Young Ezra Miller, call 911!
YOUNG EZRA straight up heel turns and bolts out the front door of the house into the street.
RON LIVINGSTON
No, you idiot! We’re in a suburban kitchen in 2001, you were probably standing next to the phone when I yelled for you to call 911! Where the fuck are you running to!? Your mother’s death is on you, Ezra! It’s on yoouuuuuuuuuuuuu
EZRA stops remembering and returns to their phone call.
EZRA MILLER
Huh. I guess I always had this super-weird run even as a kid.
RON LIVINGSTON
You sure did, sport. Anyway, we never figured out what actually killed her and nobody really cares aside from the impact it's had on me.
EZRA MILLER
Well, I won’t rest until I’ve proven your innocence in a way that sworn testimony that I heard my mother scream in the kitchen while you were still in the driveway never could.
(pondering)
If only I had the ability to time travel! But the only way to do that reliably would be with some kind of "Cosmic Treadmill", a concept whose name is too stupid even for this movie.
EZRA runs super fast and arrives at the CHRONO BOWL, a much less dumb name. EZRA can use it to travel to different points in time but mostly sticks to places production already built sets for.
INT. CENTRAL CITY - THE PAST
EZRA travels back to 2001 and slips a fateful can of tomatoes into MARIBEL VERDÚ’S cart.
EZRA MILLER
Perfect. Now that she won't forget the tomatoes, she'll have no reason to send my dad back to the store. This will prevent whoever wanted to frame him from being able to, because now he'd definitely be home when she's murdered, which will make him look even more guilty...
(confused)
Wait, the entire story hinges on this can of tomatoes thing and there's no reason why this would prevent her murder or prove his innocence. Wow, good thing I spent like 20 seconds considering this or I'd have actually committed to this stupid idea. I'll need to think of something else.
Turns out EZRA DOESN'T, this does the trick so EZRA tries to travel back to 2023 but a SPIKY ROCK MONSTER in the CHRONO BOWL pushes them out and EZRA winds up in 2013, which is about how long ago this movie has been in development hell.
MARIBEL VERDÚ
Oh hi, Ezra! So glad to see you, I sure do enjoy not having been murdered!
RON LIVINGSTON
And I am loving my freedom from not being in prison! Everything is so great, really the only thing that sucks about our lives is that our kid turned into a version of Ezra Miller that is, impossibly, more annoying than ever!
EZRA MILLER
That can’t be true! I mean yes, I was a tad grating in Justice League but me entering the Speed Force is 2022’s Most Cheer-Worthy Moment!
RON LIVINGSTON
By the way champ, we stayed together long enough to decide we want a divorce.
Suddenly EZRA sees the alternate version of themself approach the house and goes to intercept.
EZRA MILLER
Ezra! It’s me, Ezra! I’m you from an alternate timeline where I cut my own hair!
EXTRA MILLER
Wow, a multiverse adventure! What an interesting concept to explore, because it's 2013 so we're not all fatigued by seeing this exact same story fifteen times.
EZRA MILLER
2013? Wait, that's the year you get your powers! We have to hurry and make sure you get them before lightning strikes the clocktower-- err, I mean, your forensic science laboratory.
EXTRA MILLER
Huh? If I'm supposed to get my powers today then why am I not just going to like, get them? Sorry for not keeping up, I seem to have legitimate brain damage.
EZRA MILLER
Because in this timeline your mother wasn’t mur... uh, no reason. But you don’t become an obsessive forensics expert in this timeline, and you need to be surrounded by random beakers full of forensic chemicals when you get struck by lightning to become superpowered, which is the origin story we’re going to stick with unchanged.
EXTRA MILLER
So I don’t have my powers, the motivation to use my powers, or the knowledge about this timeline that could help you. Kinda sounds like you should have just done this adventure on your own without involving me at all, I’m 100% dead weight.
EZRA MILLER
Well does it change your mind if you know that today is also the day that Michael Shannon and his alien forces invade to try and blow up the planet?
EXTRA MILLER
Depends, do I use my powers to help stop it?
EZRA MILLER
No. Actually you’re utterly worthless in the battle, you make one kid watch his father die and then leave. Really what we need to do is find Superman! And to do that, really what we need to do is find Batman!
EXTRA MILLER
(shrugging)
Okay fine I’ll go along with you on the one condition that I be such a useless little wet fart that even you can’t stand being around me.
EZRA MILLER helps EXTRA MILLER gain their superpowers, but in the process loses their own.
EZRA MILLER
Damn, you’re going to have to do all the superspeed stuff now. The only way to learn is by having you burn your clothes off and then phase your clothes off and then talk about your dick.
EXTRA MILLER
Truly the role I was born to play. Alright, so how do we find this Batman?
EZRA MILLER
Well, I know his secret identity so we'll just go to his house, which is located so far away from where we are that I had to super-speed run all the way there earlier, and I no longer have super-speed powers. But if we just smash cut to us arriving there, no questions will be raised so...
SMASH CUT TO:
INT. WAYNE MANOR
They go to WAYNE MANOR but discover there is no BEN AFFLECK there and it is instead...
MICHAEL KEATON
You wanna get nuts? Let’s get nuts.
(checks item off bat-contract)
EZRA MILLER
Michael Keaton? You’re Batman in this timeline? How the shit does me moving a can of tomatoes in 2001 cause a butterfly effect like that? I even changed Back to the Future to star Eric Stoltz somehow, even though it came out in 1985!
MICHAEL KEATON
Oh let me explain. For some reason I’m a theoretical physicist now too, so I know all about time travel. You see, you think that when you change something in the past it creates a branching timeline--
EZRA MILLER
--like in those unwatchable MCU multiverse movies.
MICHAEL KEATON
What? Everyone loves those, they stopped after Endgame in this universe. But anyway, when you change the past it actually puts you in a different, discrete timeline altogether, like these two spaghetti strands demonstrate.
EXTRA MILLER
What is it with Italian food around here?
MICHAEL KEATON
Listen Ezra, you shouldn’t go around trying to save your dead parents. Having dead parents is what makes us who we are.
EZRA MILLER
Are you saying that, given the choice, you like being Batman more than you liked your parents being alive?
MICHAEL KEATON
Weirdly yes that’s exactly what I’m saying. Have you seen all my wonderful toys? I wouldn't have any of this stuff if I didn't inherit all my dead parents' wealth, fuck 'em.
EZRA MILLER
Speaking of people dying, there's an evil Kryptonian army that just invaded this planet and we need help locating a good Kryptonian that I'm confident must be here somewhere even though none of the other members of the Justice League are.
MICHAEL KEATON
Absolutely not. I would never help you find and free a Kryptonian, since I share most of my personality traits with the Batman from your timeline and he was was so distrustful of Kryptonians based on this invasion that he tried to spear-murder all of them.
(pause)
Nah I'm just kidding, I'll do it. Hey did you know mistletoe can be deadly if you eat it?
(good enough, crosses another item off bat-contract)
INT. SECRET SIBERIAN PRISON
MICHAEL KEATON and some other characters who don’t matter anymore now that he’s in the movie all break into a secret facility that has captured A MYSTERIOUS KRYPTONIAN. Once there they discover... SASHA CALLE!
SUPER-CALLE
Unghh... where am I? Did my appearance as Supergirl get chucked into this vault next to Batgirl or will people see me wear this godawful suit?
EZRA MILLER
No, against all odds this movie actually came out, eventually. We were going to help kick off the DCEU but now we're helping it kick the bucket.
EXTRA MILLER
Listen, I have no idea what's going on right now but is there any way I could be extremely annoying while it happens?
SUPER-CALLE
Hnngh, I'm too weak to even question being saved by the weenie twins and their grandpa but as soon as I have my strength back I've got some questions.
MICHAEL KEATON
We have to move. There’s a lot going on in this region of the world right now and I’d prefer we spend as little time in Siberia as possible.
They get to the surface and SASHA CALLE as SUPERGIRL actually sees the light of day. She charges up her powers and absolutely DEMOLISHES the military and they escape to MICHAEL KEATON’S BATCAVE.
INT. BATCAVE
MICHAEL, now also a master chemist, electrical engineer, and general wizard, sets up the circumstances for EZRA getting superpowers with a bunch of beakers full of colored liquid just kind of sitting near EZRA a few feet away from the BATMOBILE THAT WON'T BE USED.
EZRA MILLER
Alright. With absolutely zero understanding of why this led to me getting my powers in the first place, I’m confident that this thrown-together facsimile accurately recreates the conditions of my origin. Dr. Frankenstein, flip the switch!
EZRA gets electrocuted but it doesn’t bring back their powers. So they get electrocuted again, and this time IT DOES.
EZRA MILLER
Cool, I’m a superhero again. Hey Dumb Ezra, I’m going to need my dick-binding suit back, sorry for being a de-gifter.
EXTRA MILLER
That’s fine, I can just build a new one out of an extra Batman suit that performs none of the necessary functions your suit does while also preventing my head from turning.
MICHAEL KEATON
Seeing you both act like complete morons nonstop has inspired me to want to stop Michael Shannon from destroying the planet after all. Super-Calle, fragile little Ezra is atrocious. Will you help us?
SUPER-CALLE
No.
(pause)
Yes.
EXT. DESERT
MICHAEL, EZRA, EXTRA, and SASHA all go confront MICHAEL SHANNON and his KRYPTONIAN FORCES.
MICHAEL SHANNON
Slurp slurp slurp, this little piggy wants his yummy yummy crap.
ANTJE TRAUE
(still no lines)
(makes slurping gesture and mimes pig oinking)
Surprisingly, the battle goes very poorly for the SEPTAUGENARIAN WITH NO SUPERPOWERS, the PERSON WHO GOT THEIR POWERS BACK 5 MINUTES AGO, the IMBECILE WHO GOT THEIR POWERS YESTERDAY, and the ALIEN PRISONER WHO DISCOVERED HER POWERS 10 MINUTES AGO.
Everyone DIES.
WHIZRA MILLER
Ezra! Did we seriously bring Michael Keaton back as Batman just to watch him die?
EXTRA MILLER
Certainly not, let’s travel back in time and do the one thing you spent the movie learning not to do!
They try to change the outcome but everyone DIES anyway.
WHIZRA MILLER
Ezra! Did we seriously bring Michael Keaton back as Batman just to watch him die REPEATEDLY?
EXTRA MILLER
No! Let’s try again! This was all your idea, by the way, I don't know why you're yelling at me for it.
They try to change the outcome but everyone DIES again, over and over.
WHIZRA MILLER
HOLY FUCK did we seriously bring Michael Keaton back as Batman just to establish canonically that the only universe in which he exists is the one where his planet gets obliterated by aliens in 2013 and there’s literally no way to prevent it!?
EXTRA MILLER
Okay yeah that’s what we did.
SUPER-CALLE
Don't forget also establishing that Zod effortlessly wins in any universe where Superman has a vagina even if assisted by not one but two speedsters with unlimited retries. Being a girl is an anti-superpower so strong it cancels out everything else.
(dies infinitely)
Suddenly EZRA and EXTRA are confronted by yet another EZRA MILLER, a spiky rock monster version that’s been trapped in the CHRONO BOWL for decades, and who's also been SEARED and CHARRED for extra Cajun flavor.
CRISPY MILLER
I’ve been trying to win this battle for ages. It was me Ezra, that’s why I pushed you into the 2013 timestream, so you could give me my powers, thereby creating myself. Don't think too hard about it, it's clever when time travel movies do this.
WHIZRA MILLER
Not a huge twist that the one living organism I encountered inside this place that only I can go into turned out to be me but sure, color me shocked.
EXTRA MILLER
Look! Our endless fucking around with time has caused the discrete universes in the multiverse to collapse! Who could have ever seen this coming aside from everyone that's ever consumed literally any sci-fi media?
WHIZRA MILLER
I can't believe we're still doing this multiverse schtick! In the time it took to make this movie an entire Flash TV series started and concluded that adapted this exact same comic book storyline!
EXTRA MILLER
Don't forget there were also 16 animated DC films which also included an adaptation of the same comic book storyline!
CRISPY MILLER
Goddamn, a Spider-Man multiverse movie just came out LAST WEEK! I'm so fucking tired of this dumb formula and the obsession with 2-second meaningless cameos! I have to end this!
(kills Extra Miller)
Oh no, killing my younger self also kills me! This makes no sense at all with the spaghetti thing, how did they have 10 years to write the screenplay and it came out like thiiiiissssss
(dies)
We see the universe of the old GEORGE REEVES SUPERMAN, where the actual world is BLACK AND WHITE because the FOOTAGE IS.
We see the universe of CHRISTOPHER REEVE SUPERMAN and HELEN SLATER SUPERGIRL as they sort of just stare at a giant threatening wormhole opening in their sky and heroically attempt to do nothing about it collapsing into another universe.
We see the universe of NICOLAS CAGE SUPERMAN fighting a giant SPIDER and KEVIN SMITH ejaculates in his jorts so hard he goes on Twitter and posts an extremely explicit 12-post thread describing it.
ADAM WEST BATMAN is there too but the CGI budget frankly ran out 2 multiverse cameos ago so everything else is just still frames.
RYAN REYNOLDS as GREEN LANTERN is nowhere to be seen because he’s filming DEADPOOL 3 which has the exact same plot as this movie.
WHIZRA MILLER
The only way to fix this is to go back in time and fuck my own mother. But Eric Stoltz already tried that idea so I guess I’ll have to kill her instead. Those are the rules of Fuck-Marry-Kill and they are very rigid.
EZRA goes back in time to 2001 again but stopping 9/11 is OFF THE TABLE.
MARIBEL VERDÚ
Hello random stranger in a grocery store. I don’t know why, but I can tell you need a hug from someone who is a mother, but presumably not your mother.
EZRA MILLER
You’re right. One last hug before I remove these tomatoes from your shopping cart and cause you to die by a fatal stabbing that nobody is even remotely questioning the cause of, like it doesn't even get mentioned.
MARIBEL VERDÚ
Oh! The tomatoes! Thank you for reminding me to pick those up.
EZRA MILLER
Aw, fuck!
EZRA goes back in time again but this time removes the tomatoes and does the creepy thing where they satisfy their needs for physical affection with a woman while she's frozen in time and unaware there is any caressing going on.
EXT. CENTRAL CITY - PRESENT DAY
EZRA returns to their original timeline on the day of their father’s appeal hearing, in a movie where EZRA already led a prison-break sequence with seemingly no qualms.
EZRA MILLER
Dad! I know that the entire lesson I learned was screwing with the past has disastrous consequences but fuck it, I swapped the tomato cans so now your face should be visible on the security cam footage!
RON LIVINGSTON
Wow, great work! Wait, but the entire point of the murder that we’re suspiciously incurious about was to frame me for it so won’t whoever did the actual murder just wait and do it another time so that I won't have an alibi?
EZRA MILLER
That's what I said! But no, it works out! The day is saved by literally standing back and letting my own mother get brutally stabbed to death with a kitchen knife in her own home! And it doesn't count as a heroic sacrifice on her part because she had no agency in it! What a satisfying ending!
EZRA walks out of the courthouse and runs into... GEORGE CLOONEY!
GEORGE CLOONEY
Hi Flash. I’m Batman.
EZRA MILLER
What? The one cameo we get that isn’t a character model from the Injustice video games and it’s Clooney?
GEORGE CLOONEY
They tried to get Christian Bale but he unleashed a string of Welsh swearwords that James Gunn had to look up. I just told them I didn't want to shave my beard even though it negates any possibility of me being Batman and they agreed, can you believe it?
EZRA MILLER
Eh, fine. Does it even matter what's canon in a sequel to a movie there’s two official versions of? Does Martian Manhunter even exist here? The whole point of the Flashpoint storyline is that Flash accidentally creates an alternate DC universe is so full of violence and misery that he has to fix it but that basically IS the canon Snyderverse. So sure, let’s end on a Treehouse-of-Horror-esque reveal where everything is the same except we have lizard tongues.
The film FLOPS so hard that WARNER BROTHERS stops doing whatever voodoo magic that’s been keeping EZRA out of jail and miraculously off the radar of FOX NEWS COMMENTATORS as the exact manifestation of their CULTURAL BOOGEYMAN.
END
EXT. POST-CREDITS SEQUENCE
JASON MOMOA passes out in a puddle of urine behind a bar or some shit to tease the next DCEU flop, nobody cares.
END