Shuvrajit Das Biswas
Ben Affleck reveled to IGN in a detailed interview, why he decided to walk away from the writing and direction of ‘The Batman‘ movie. He said he just could not crack the script and was not happy with where it was going. Affleck elaborated on this, saying, “That was part of the problem. We worked on the script, I was trying to figure out how to crack it, and I was never happy enough with it where I thought it was worth going out and making it because I just didn’t want to do a version that I wasn’t really excited by, so I still don’t know”.
Affleck, who was supposed to direct and star in ‘The Batman’, had officially exit his role as Batman a little over two weeks back. The upcoming film is being directed by Matt Reeves, who is famous for movies like ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ and ‘Cloverfield‘. It will not involve the ‘Gone Girl‘ actor as the caped crusader. Affleck had spoken at length about his departure from the role, including an official statement when he appeared on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’.
While earlier speaking about his attempts to make ‘The Batman’ over two years ago, when Affleck was still attached to the project, he asserted the fact that he had no intention of rushing the film and would only move forward if he felt confident in the story that he was telling. He had said in 2016, “I don’t have a script that’s ready yet. My timetable is I’m not going to make a movie until there’s a script that I think is good because I’ve been on the end of the things when you make movies when you have a script that’s not good yet and it doesn’t pan out. I have a script, we’re still working on it, and I’m not happy enough with it yet to actually go out there and make a Batman movie, for which I have the highest of standards, I would say. That’s something that would have to pass a very high bar for me. It’s not just like, ‘Yeah, that might be fun, let’s go try this out'”. However, it seems as though the ‘Justice League’ star could not be satisfied with the project enough to continue with it. He said as much on Jimmy Kimmel’s show about leaving, stating, “Yeah, I am. I have decided — I tried to direct a version of it, worked with a really good screenwriter, but couldn’t come up with a version. Couldn’t crack it. So I thought it was time to let someone else take a shot at it, and they got some really good people.”
For those unaware, the new Batman movie is expected to take a more noirish approach and explore the skills of the caped crusader of Gotham as a detective rather than a superhero. The DC comics and Warner Bros. Pictures movie will reportedly be casting a younger Batman for the role and the film might not be a part of the extended, shared universe of DC movies. CEO Kevin Tsujihara of Warner Bros. told to the Los Angeles Times “The upcoming slate, with Shazam!, Joker, Wonder Woman 1984 and Birds of Prey, feels like we’re on the right track. We have the right people in the right jobs working on it. The universe isn’t as connected as we thought it was going to be five years ago. You’re seeing much more focus on individual experiences around individual characters. That’s not to say we won’t at some point come back to that notion of a more connected universe. But it feels like that’s the right strategy for us right now”. ‘The Batman’ is expected to hit theaters on June 25, 2021.
Read More: Upcoming Ben Affleck Movies
