When did this Ben Affleck Batman tragedy begin? Alex Zalben has a pretty good timeline of Affleck’s interaction with superhero roles here but it leaves out a few things, such as Affleck’s breakout role as “Holden” the aspiring comics artist in Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy.

Okay that was prehistory, and Zalben does reference Affleck’s now long forgotten dalliance with Gwyneth Paltrow (while forgetting Benlo!) but the bottom line is…this was destiny, people.

It was especially destiny since, as far as I can tell, Warner Bros was obsessed with making sure one of their most respected (now Oscar winning) up and coming directors got involved with their blossoming DC Filmed Universe. From Zalben’s timeline, there’s his smoking gun tweet from all the way back in February:


Off his Argo success, Affleck was asked if he wanted to direct the Justice League movie, but he wisely said no. But here’s another MTV piece from 2012 which more directly addresses Affleck’s love and hate relationship with superheroes. In it he revealed that he was miserable making Daredevil, and that experience had stopped him from getting involved with another superhero project. “I had a negative experience with the one comic book I liked, it was just a movie that didn’t work.” he told MTV. “It’s such a shame because first of all ‘Daredevil’ [is] a great book, great idea and then right after that they figured out that it was better to make the movies good and then they started making them cool and investing in them.”

Nonetheless, he wished the planned Daredevil reboot well and most importantly, said he would be open to working on a new comic book movie “if it was the right one and if I thought I could do it well.”

Of course you never want to rule anything out. While Affleck’s instinct not to take on the raging mass of neurotic anxiety that will undoubtedly be WB’s attempt at a JLA movie was the move of a very sane man, maybe his donning the cape and cowl is a lead-in to a different directing gig in DC’s movie verse? It would seem plausible for WB to hope that, although that is only speculation.

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In the meantime, what of an Affleck Batman? He has the jaw and physique for the role, but during the Argo press tour, I noticed he was getting a little all-too-human puffiness from all those catered affairs and maybe a few Sam Adams along the way. (He was deliberately out of shape for his role as George Reeve, above.) Maybe that’s why Affleck has avoided superhero roles — to be a movie superstar these days you need to direct almost as much energy to staying 2% body fat as you do to acting. Of course a little training will get the mostly fit 41-year-old into wifebeater scene ready, eight pack ab shape.

The training is no problem, the acting…well, you know people, Christian Bale aside, guess what…acting in superhero movies isn’t particularly a taxing acting job. Affleck is maybe a little too likable for a Batman but given all the hate he’s getting today, that may be changing fast.

Finally, it is extremely rare that fans, nerdlebrities and just plain actors are all entranced by the same event in such as way, as the following tweet shows. It’s true; Batfleck has united the nation in a way that few events in history have.

11 COMMENTS

  1. “I had a negative experience with the one comic book I liked, it was just a movie that didn’t work.” he told MTV.

    But, but the press told me you were a big huge comics fan around when Daredevil came out, Ben. Do you mean to tell me when the media says all these stars are really into comics that maybe…maybe it ain’t so?

  2. “I noticed he was getting a little all-too-human puffiness from all those catered affairs and maybe a few Sam Adams along the way.”

    Isn’t he a recovering alcoholic?

  3. I don’t give a shit who’s playing the Corporate Crusader. I am very upset Affleck’s Live by Night movie has been pushed aside. Affleck + Lehane = awesome.

  4. I guess I’m the only one in America who thought Ben’s Daredevil movie wasn’t all that bad.

    I admit, it came out just as the *superhero* blockbuster film / franchise / concept was starting to really take root… so yeah, perhaps more attention from the studios could have gone into it. It was like superhero films were not *serious* enough (then came Nolan’s Batman). It seemed like they (the studios) put Daredevil out there just to see how well it would do… A bit like how the Ghost Rider movies were just put out there in hopes that it would have a good return on a cheap investment. At least that’s my view on it. What do I know.

  5. Like someone said: The Internet may have turned everyone into a critic, but critics are supposed to SEE things before they criticize them. It will be almost 2 years before we’ll see Ben Affleck playing Batman.

    And I didn’t think his Daredevil movie was that bad, either.

  6. I didn’t care for Daredevil, but the cast was the only thing I liked. Most actors can only do so much with a lousy script and a director that doesn’t seem to care that he had a lousy script and too small a budget.

  7. I quite enjoyed Daredevil, particularly the Director’s Cut. The movie had some difficulty in having the budget exponentially increased in the middle of filming, with new directives to bring in a PG-13 movie rather than an R-rate noir-esque movie.

    The sequence when DD arrives home, gulps some painkillers, shows his tortured body, gets dumped by his girlfriend and collapses into sleep was really the first time (pre Nolan) that you saw some of the ‘other side’ of superheroing.

  8. I’m a little perturbed that the photo of Affleck as George Reeves supposedly illustrates that he “deliberately out of shape.” He looks pretty fit to me there. We should give actors a break, it’s a never-ending gymnasium & calorie watch hamster wheel to get and maintain cheese-grater abs. Have you been to a shopping mall in the midwest lately? A whole lot of people seriously overweight and stuffed into ill-fitting t-shirts that make Affleck look like a Greek God on his worst day.

  9. John Lee, yes very true but have you been to the cineplex lately? To be an action movie star you must be absolutely ripped the shreds. In fact I’ve been hearing people make fun of Vin Diesel in the new Riddick because he doesn’t look totally cut.

  10. Realistically he has one shirt-off scene which he can pump himself up for, take all the required drugs and then the body armour/cgi/good tailoring can take up the slack for the rest of the picture. I don’t expect him to go the full Hugh Jackman. That’s pretty silly in a man of 30 , never mind mid 40s.

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