Movies / Comics To Film News

Ben Affleck: The Surest Way to Flop a Super Hero Movie

By Hervé St-Louis
August 23, 2013 - 08:12

Ten years ago, Ben Affleck put on a red costume and a red wig and started jumping building to building, pretending to be Daredevil. It didn’t end all that well for him, but the best thing for him was that he married co-star Jennifer Garner and has since raised a family with her. Variety has announced that Affleck would be playing Batman in Warner Brothers’ upcoming Superman and Batman film. This will not end well. I should give the man the benefit of the doubt, but I have a feeling playing Batman will wreck Affleck’s career, the same way playing Daredevil sent him to purgatory for almost a decade.

I will not be kind. Ben Affleck has been miscast for Batman and it doesn’t encourage me one bit about Warner Brothers’ difficult relationship with its DC Comics movie franchise. Superman Batman is meant to set the cement for a Justice League film. Warner Brothers has had problems with blockbusters featuring DC Comics characters. Green Lantern didn’t really work. The Wonder Woman film has been aborted several times. Superman had to be rebooted. Only Batman as a franchise, has had any success for Warner Brothers at the movie theatre and now, the studio is about to destroy the only thing that works for them. Were I a Marvel Comics or a Disney executive, I would be laughing  like a madman right now. Affleck’s casting stinks of committee decision-making.

Following his directing and playing in Argo, a movie about the how allegedly the Central Intelligence Agency extirpated six American embassy employees during the 1979 Iranian theocratic revolution, Ben Affleck has felt vindicated. He won accolades from Hollywood, even though his film was complete sham that misrepresented the way Canadians were involved in the rescue of the six Americans. But the movie, although pretty shallow, played to a well-worn formula and hit just the right notes to be deemed a great piece of historical fiction. There were talks of Affleck directing Superman Batman before his casting was announced. I think both he and Warner Brothers are deluding themselves.

Ben Affleck doesn’t have what it takes to be a great Batman. It’s hard to put a finger on what makes a great Batman, but George Clooney didn’t have it. Val Kilmer did. Surprisingly, Michael Keaton whom many also thought was miscast was a decent Batman. But following Christian Bale, Affleck just looks out of place. In Daredevil, he was trying too hard. He had no real emotion. He was too big, too fat. He didn’t have the neurotic and intense quality needed to be Daredevil and he destroyed that franchise for one generation.

Ben Affleck is about to destroy more than Batman. He will destroy the whole Justice League franchise. At this point, I don’t really want to see anything coming next from Warner Brothers. They just don’t get it. To play the popularity game, perhaps Warner Brothers should have hired Wentworth Miller. He has that Batman quality that I can’t describe. But now that everyone knows he’s gay, he won’t ever be cast for leading roles again. Chris Evans succeeded in playing two super heroes, the Human Torch and Captain America. There’s no way Ben Affleck can do the same. As we already know, he failed with Daredevil.

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12