Ben Affleck has been opening up about the Joss Whedon reshoots of Justice League, and his struggles with the project.
Ben Affleck’s tenure as Batman is soon to come to an end, with the actor being replaced in the Batsuit by both Robert Pattinson, in Matt Reeves’ upcoming The Batman, and Micheal Keaton, who is returning to the role that he first played back in 1989. As such, Affleck has been reflecting on his time in the cowl, which began with Zack Snyder’s 2016’s Batman Vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice and will end with Andy Muschietti’s The Flash, which is due to release later this year.
At one point, Affleck, who has recently declared that he is done with franchises and IP-based projects, was fully invested in the character, planning to write and direct his own solo movie. However, a combination of issues within his personal life and the issues with Justice League's reshoots proved to be too much for Affleck to bear.
As he puts it: “[It was] the nadir for me. That was a bad experience because of a confluence of things: my own life, my divorce, being away too much, the competing agendas and then [director] Zack’s personal tragedy and the reshooting. It just was the worst experience. It was awful. It was everything that I didn’t like about this. That became the moment where I said I’m not doing this anymore. It’s not even about, like, Justice League was so bad. Because it could have been anything.”
However, in a happy ending for Affleck’s time with the character, the actor, who was once Kevin Smith’s choice to play Superman in an early 1990s project Smith was scripting, has found peace with the role in his final turn as Batman. Says Affleck: “[It] Put a really nice finish on my experience with that character…. maybe my favourite scenes in terms of Batman and the interpretation of Batman that I have done were in the Flash movie. I hope they maintain the integrity of what we did because I thought it was great and really interesting – different, but not in a way that is incongruent with the character. Who knows? Maybe they will decide that it doesn’t work, but when I went and did it, it was really fun and really, really satisfying and encouraging, and I thought, wow – I think I have finally figured it out”.
Following his unhappiness with how his 2003 Daredevil movie was received, we’re glad that Affleck has made his peace with his time as the Dark Knight, and equally happy he’s planning on committing himself to non-franchise roles. As his turn in last year’s The Last Duel showed, the actor has a lot to offer, beyond superhero roles, and we, for one, are glad we’ll be getting to see that side of Affleck’s skills.
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