Why Ben Affleck Finally Ditched The Batman

Late January brought us news that Ben Affleck had finally hung up his cape and stepped down from starring in Matt Reeves’ The Batman. The situation had been in flux for some time, with the actor originally set to write and direct the film, but seeming less sure about the task at hand as time went by. Eventually, Cloverfield director Reeves took up the reins on the DC project, and Affleck’s future as Batman became murkier. Now, it’s clear that the Batfleck era will be confined to Warner Bros’ Batman v  Superman: Dawn Of Justice and 2017’s Justice League.

This week, Affleck appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live to talk about his new film, Triple Frontier, which will be streaming on Netflix in March. Eventually, the conversation turned to why Affleck had quit The Batman.

“I tried to direct a version of it, worked with a really good screenwriter, but couldn’t come up with a version,” he admitted. “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.”

You can see Affleck’s appearance on the talk show below…

Affleck’s comments come after Mark Hughes at Forbes published an exhaustive column on the financial future of the DCEU at Warner Bros earlier this week, claiming that new Superman film ideas have been shelved to concentrate on bringing Supergirl to cinemas instead, that Jared Leto was completely gone as The Joker, and that Margot Robbie won’t be reprising her role as Harley Quinn in James Gunn’s forthcoming Suicide Squad relaunch, The Suicide Squad. Hughes has provided no sources to back up this information at the time of writing.

Matt Reeves previously sketched out his plans to make the Dark Knight’s next instalment smaller in scale.

“It’s very much a point of view-driven, noir Batman tale,” the director told THR. “It’s told very squarely on his shoulders, and I hope it’s going to be a story that will be thrilling but also emotional. He’s supposed to be the world’s greatest detective, and that’s not necessarily been a part of what the movies have been. I’d love this to be one where when we go on that journey of tracking down the criminals and trying to solve a crime, it’s going to allow his character to have an arc so that he can go through a transformation.”

We’ll bring you more on Matt Reeves’ The Batman as it arrives.