Certainly not trying to beat a dead horse or pile on since Ben Affleck’s main run as Batman (BATMAN v SUPERMAN, the JUSTICE LEAGUE films, and various DCEU cameos) ended long ago. But this is Batman On Film, and since Affleck has decided to talk again about his Batman on film run, I decided BOF needed to run a story on it.
In a new interview with GQ, Affleck discussed his experience playing Batman…
There are a number of reasons why that was a really excruciating experience. And they don’t all have to do with the simple dynamic of, say, being in a superhero movie or whatever. I am not interested in going down that particular genre again, not because of that bad experience, but just: I’ve lost interest in what was of interest about it to me. But I certainly wouldn’t want to replicate an experience like that. A lot of it was misalignment of agendas, understandings, expectations. And also by the way, I wasn’t bringing anything particularly wonderful to that equation at the time, either. I had my own failings, significant failings, in that process and at that time. I mean, my failings as an actor, you can watch the various movies and judge. But more of my failings of, in terms of why I had a bad experience, part of it is that what I was bringing to work every day was a lot of unhappiness. So I wasn’t bringing a lot of positive energy to the equation. I didn’t cause problems, but I came in and I did my job and I went home. But you’ve got to do a little bit better than that.
Yes, I did not like BATMAN v SUPERMAN — hated it, quite frankly — but I’ve always believed that Ben Affleck’s performance as Batman in the film was very good. The characterization and depiction of Batman? Not so much (i.e. it was awful). And of course, we know that he was having all sorts of personal issues while filming JUSTICE LEAGUE, which led to his mailed-in performance. And don’t even get me started on his brief time as the writer/director/star of what ended up turning into Matt Reeves’ THE BATMAN. (Never mind, I’ll say it again: Ben Affleck never really had his heart into doing a solo Batman film, and the pressure to do one was intense and unfair.)
He also addressed the reason why the whole thing — meaning the DCEU — didn’t work…
What happened was it started to skew too old for a big part of the audience. Like even my own son at the time was too scared to watch the movie. And so when I saw that I was like, ‘Oh shit, we have a problem.’ Then I think that’s when you had a filmmaker that wanted to continue down that road and a studio that wanted to recapture all the younger audience at cross purposes. Then you have two entities, two people really wanting to do something different and that is a really bad recipe.
Bad recipe, indeed.
I was at the big press event and screening for BATMAN v SUPERMAN back in 2016, and I knew that Warner Bros. knew that they had a BIG problem on their hands (You can learn more about my experience at the BvS presser HERE). What they should’ve done was pull a SUPERMAN LIVES, cancel JUSTICE LEAGUE (even though filming was about to start in just a few weeks), and regroup. But they didn’t and had to deal with the cluster f*ck of their own making for several more years.
But, it’s all water LONG under the bridge, right?
Matt Reeves is currently bringing us THE BATMAN EPIC CRIME SAGA with Robert Pattinson as Batman, and eventually, there will be a new Batman on film for James Gunn’s new DCU. But as someone who once very much wanted Ben Affleck to direct and star in a Batman movie — WAY before BvS or even MAN OF STEEL, which started the doomed DCEU — I can’t help to think “What could’ve been?” from time to time. Oh yeah…
They ain’t ever going to #MakeTheBatfleckMovie.
CLICK HERE or on any of the links provided for the full interview…it’s worth a read and your time. – Bill “Jett” Ramey
