Recently, James Gunn and Peter Safran announced 10 upcoming DC projects that will make up the first chapter of an unfurling saga they will preside over at Warner Bros. This included a potential Swamp Thing movie, a reboot of Batman and Robin titled The Brave and the Bold, and Gunn’s own Superman project, titled Superman: Legacy. That means the studio is moving off of the SnyderVerse of films, which included Man of Steel and Zack Snyder’s Justice League… and was supposed to include a solo Batman movie directed by and starring Ben Affleck. So why did Affleck walk away from that project? He opened up over the weekend.
Ben Affleck attended a screening of Zack Snyder’s Justice League in Los Angeles on Sunday as part of a three-day celebration dubbed SnyderCon by the director’s fans. And in response to a question from a fan about Affleck’s plan for Batman, and what his solo movie might have included, the director of Air and Argo explained some of this approach, but also why he ultimately gave up on the project. During the post-screening Q-and-A, Affleck said:
There was a whole elaborate plan, which would take up too much time now, and some of which I may have forgotten. I always liked that character, and talked to Zack about that. My plan for continuing on in this character, a certain point I got to and kind of found that I thought I wasn't really, you know … I just felt like I wasn't quite sure if it worked or jived. I felt like if you have a character like this, and you kind of take that on, you want to go forward, you better really be sure and understand it and be confident. And certainly, as a director, you have to be the last person interested in the movie when everyone else is really bored and doesn't want to watch it again, and is sick of it, and exhausted by the whole process. I have held myself to this kind of metric where if I'm not really sure I see the precise location or target that I want to hit, I'm not sure I can hit it, but I want to at least know exactly what I'm aiming for.
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There are a lot of factors to consider when you listen to Ben Affleck’s answer regarding the solo Batman movie that fans wanted him to direct. The actor had been playing Batman for years, having assumed the role for Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and faced various forms of backlash with regards to his casting in the role. He’d also endured a hellish experience with regards to Justice League, and all of the behind-the-scenes controversies that accompanied that shoot. He’s spokien at length about how that was the worst experience of his career. So while screening Snyder’s restored Justice League was a victory lap, Affleck claims he had lost sight of the “precise location or target” that he should have been aiming for with a solo Batman movie. In his mind, it was time to move on.
Ben Affleck returned to the director’s chair recently for the film Air, which premiered at SXSW and went on to be a box office hit while riding on the wave of positive reviews. But the fans who want him to still fit into the Batman cape and cowl probably have to let that idea go, as it seems like Affleck has moved on.
