So I woke up this morning to see that Ben Affleck has officially announced that he is departing his role as The Dark Knight. Of course if you’ve been keeping up to date with DC movie news on the past couple of years, you’ll know that he’s pretty much been the Schrodinger’s Cat, or should I saw Schrodinger’s Bat, of the comics world with there constantly being speculation as to whether he is in or out.
However, on twitter today, Affleck gracefully announced that he was stepping down from the role by confirming a news article from Deadline Hollywood.
Incase you can’t read, in the tweet Affleck says:
Excited for #TheBatman in Summer 2021 and to see @MattReevesLA vision come to life.
Now this doesn’t really come as a big surprise, however, it is pretty disappointing.
Affleck was someone that got slammed upon casting by the internet, including me but he won round a lot of people due to his portrayal in Batman V Superman. He managed to carry the menace, fear driven crime fighter that to fear-driven crimefighter that is by far the most comic book accurate version that we’ve had in a live action film.
It’s pretty clear that Affleck wasn’t too happy with the direction either. You only have to google ‘Sad Affleck’ to see thousands of memes from the press tour of BVS to know that he wasn’t exactly ecstatic with the reception on the film. Here was a guy who was really going through a second renaissance in his career and winning oscars but had to put this on hold to do the role.
Due to Warner Brothers not really having a clear direction for the character, constant reshoots and negative press around whether he was going to continue playing the role after Justice League, I think it just became a bit too much.
The Batman
We’ve heard for years that Matt Reeves has wanted to focus on a younger Batman for his standalone film and a film focused solely on the character has been bounced around since 2013, when the actor was first cast.
That’s a lot of time to be in limbo over things and Affleck poured his heart and soul into working on the script for the film with Reeves and Johns and to then have it constantly pushed back must be frustrating.
Obviously this is frustrating for fans who liked his portrayal but hopefully this will mean that Warner Brothers finally just get their head down and sort out all the problems with their cinematic universe. I really want the DCU to get back on track as I’ve always preferred their comics over Marvel and maybe his departure is for the greater good, even if it is disappointing.
Your Thoughts
I would of course love to hear your thoughts on the news and if you think that this is a positive or negative thing.
Make sure you leave them in the comments below and if you liked this video then please give it a thumbs up and check out my breakdown of the other big DC property news this week, Birds Of Prey, which will be linked at the end.
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