Ben Affleck Is In No Rush To Make His Batman Movie

Ben Affleck Is In No Rush To Make His Batman Movie

Last week, we were fortunate to visit the London set of Justice League. While on set, Ben Affleck approached the journalists in his full batsuit (minus cowl) to talk not just about that movie, but his solo Batman film. Here’s the short version of what he said: It will be ready when it’s ready.

Ben Affleck is this serious about directing a solo Batman movie. All Images: Warner Bros.

Here’s the longer version. “I think [Warner Bros.] a date for it,” said Affleck. “Although, I don’t know if I would necessarily be able to make that date because I don’t have a script that’s ready yet. So my timetable is I’m not going to make a movie until there’s a script that I think is good. 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.”

Affleck said the script they have now isn’t quite yet up to his personal standards of a Batman movie should be. “[It]’s something that would have to pass a very high bar for me,” he said. “It’s not just like, ‘Yeah, that might be fun, let’s go try this out.’”

What that script will entail is, obviously, still a mystery. Affleck did say, however, that we’d see the character be more of a detective in the eventual Batman movie (as well as in Justice League, for that matter).

“The world’s greatest detective aspect of Batman is more present in [Justice League] than it was in [Batman v Superman], and will probably be expanded upon further in a Batman movie that I would do,” Affleck said. “I think all the great Batman stories are, at their heart, detective stories. That’s why they feel like noir movies in a way. Somehow it feels like it could be The Maltese Falcon.”

Ben Affleck Is In No Rush To Make His Batman Movie
Affleck and Snyder on the set of Batman v Superman.

Affleck and Snyder on the set of Batman v Superman.

Before that happens, though, Affleck will appear and contribute to Zack Snyder’s Justice League, a film he’s not only starring in, but now executive producing. Though rumours circled that Affleck’s promotion was so he could have more control over the film, on set he gave a much more logical explanation.

“It’s a creative way that DC came up with, being a filmmaker-driven company and entity, [to make] sure that the right hand knows what the left hand is doing,” Affleck said. “So that there’s collaboration and supervision. So that somebody doesn’t go sailing off, causing problems for your movie with their movie.”

Basically, by executive producing Justice League, Affleck can oversee the elements that could be used in (or will definitely return for) the Batman movie. “I mean, here we are in the police station in Gotham City. There’s a potential that something like this might exist in [my] story,” he said. ” I get to weigh in on stuff [now] that impacts the Batman stuff [later].”

Though Affleck said Warner Bros. has a date for his Batman movie, we don’t know which of the untitled movies the studio has staked out on the calendar are for him (it’s likely something in 2019 or 2020). But for now Batman seems to be on Affleck’s schedule, not WB’s.


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