“Friends, Haters, BOF’ers, lend me your eyes;
I come to bury Batfleck AND praise him.”
Or something like that.
Via an interview with THE PLAYLIST, Ben Affleck pretty much confirms — again — that he’s done playing Batman.
I don’t want to do IP movies, where you have this sort of built-in audience. That’s something I was interested in and liked, and I just don’t like anymore.
Good for him! I hope he does some really good/cool/small stuff as an actor, a writer, and a director (hopefully) going forward.
Here’s the deal…
When fanboys worldwide were having major meltdowns when Affleck was cast as Batman back in 2013, I was organizing a conga line to celebrate. See, I’m a longtime Ben Affleck fan and I first suggested him for Batman back in the VERY early days of BOF in the late 1990s when the news of a BATMAN: YEAR ONE-ish reboot of the franchise came to light.
Later, he was my number one choice to take over as the writer/director of the solo BATMAN film franchise after Christopher Nolan…and I was a bit bummed when he quit — and he did quit — as the writer/director/star of his version of THE BATMAN.
My dislike for the BATMAN v SUPERMAN/ZSJL version of Batman has nothing to do with Mr. Affleck and isn’t a personal attack on the man nor the filmmaker responsible for it. I’ve said many times that I thought Affleck’s work as an actor in BvS was one of his best. Nonetheless, I just didn’t like how Batman was written and depicted in the film and it did not jibe with my personal Batman sensibilities.
Look, if it were announced today that Ben Affleck was going to write, direct, and star in a HBO Max Batman miniseries, I’d lead the parade in support of it. But that just ain’t going to happen.
The bottom line is that Ben Affleck shot a cameo for THE FLASH and it’s very, Very, VERY likely going to be the “cool way to segue out of the role” that he said he has said he wanted. If so, good for him! Hopefully, Batfleck “fans” will stop harassing the man with endless hashtags on social media and let him be…and do the sort of films he wants. – Bill “Jett” Ramey
(Thanks to BOF’s “Dick Shoes” for the heads up!)
