Ben Affleck Recalls Major Batman Turning Point: 'Oh S**t, We Have A Problem'
Ben Affleck has revealed why his version of Batman ultimately signaled trouble for his brief run as the superhero.
The actor has told GQ magazine that he took creative interest in the “older, broken, damaged” Bruce Wayne but the approach “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,” Ben – who initially starred as the Dark Knight in Zack Snyder’s 2016 film Batman vs. Superman: Dawn Of Justice before later appearances in the DC Extended Universe films – recalled.
“And so when I saw that I was like, ‘Oh shit, we have a problem’,” he continued.
“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.”
Ben has previously opened up about having his “bad experience” as Batman while shooting Snyder’s film Justice League, telling the Los Angeles Times in 2022 that the movie was a “nadir” for him.
The actor has cited his divorce from Jennifer Garner, excessive alcohol consumption, lost interest in the character and the troubled production of Justice League among reasons he couldn’t portray Batman “anymore”.
Although Ben insisted to GQ he still had a “really good time” playing Batman in several other DC films, he explained why he’s not interested in taking on superhero movies again.
“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,” he said of the genre.
“And also by the way, I wasn’t bringing anything particularly wonderful to that equation at the time, either,” he added. “I had my own failings, significant failings, in that process and at that time.”
Ben also noted that he was bringing “a lot of unhappiness” to work every day, adding that “you’ve got to do a little bit better than that” on the job.
The US star – who co-founded his Artists Equity production company with Matt Damon in 2022 – emphasised his hopes for eliminating “precisely that kind of misalignment” on future projects.