I mean, he didn't deny it. Maybe he just wrote it off since they were in early talks and he couldn't confirm one way or another, but I remember an article or a tweet where he said "of course it's in continuity. Just standalone."
Wouldn't they want to have Batman though?
Need doesn't matter - WB wants him as a proven money maker. Similar to how they wouldn't do a BoP movie without someone like Harley Quinn.
Besides, you need at least Batman or Superman for a JL movie, can't happen without one of them. And as there's been no talk or whisper of Superman coming back to film, reboot or not (but let's be honest, Cavill is out), all we got is Batman on that front.
Of course, with have much the last JL bombed, even if we had both a popular Batman reboot and a popular Superman reboot with both willing and wanting to be in a JL movie and their respective films were all in continuity, WB still might not want to make a JL movie again. It did so poorly and so badly they might consider the property toxic until about a decade later ala the time between Batman & Robin and Batman Begins, or the time between Fox's Fantastic Four sequel to it's crappier reboot a few years ago. JL did that bad, so a similar time span before they try again is likely.
Man they didn’t even want to make a Superman sequel without Batman in it, no way are they making a JL sequel without Batman in it. Sure between WW and Aquaman, the JL probably doesn’t need either Batman or Superman to do well if it’s actually good. But WB sure as hell wants Batman to be a part of it.
A bat! That's it! It's an omen.. I'll shall become a bat!
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I wouldn't mind the next attempt of Justice League to leave out Batman and/or Superman. Sometime you need to use your other players for the biggest success like how Marvel not having Spider-Man and the X-Men forced them into using the Avengers
Full circle back to the original JL where Batman and Superman weren’t founding members lol. But it’s never going to happen, at the very least Batman will be required to be in the next JL (if there ever is one) before WB would sign off on it. WW, Flash, Aquaman, GL, and Martian Manhunter fighting Starro would unironically be fantastic though.
There's no telling how successful Marvel would have been if they had the film rights to those properties all along. The "focus on lesser characters" is not an approach any studio will ever, ever do willingly. You always do your big guns first, if that's an option. Whether we would be okay with a JL movie without Batman or Superman doesn't matter, WB would never do it, and anyone from WB to seriously consider it should be fired.