Rumors surrounding Ben Affleck’s future as Batman have been circling since the release of his first Batman movie.
Last January, Affleck said, “If it doesn’t come together in a way I think is really great I’m not going to do it.” A few weeks later, he announced he wouldn’t be directing the movie. Matt Reeves, the director of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, signed up to direct a new script of the movie instead of the one Affleck wrote, which added fuel to the rumors.
Affleck seemed to deny those rumors at San Diego Comic-Con. He told the Comic-Con audience, “I am the luckiest guy in the world. Batman is the coolest part, and I’m so thrilled to do it. It’s f*cking amazing, and I still can’t believe it after two films.”
It seemed as though those rumors were over. Until, Affleck’s brother Casey said, “I thought he was an okay Batman. No, I thought he was great. He was great. He’s a hero, so he had something to channel and work with there. But he’s not going to do that movie [The Batman], I don’t think. Sorry to say. […] Is that breaking news? Because I was just kind of making that up, I don’t know.” Casey Affleck later said he was only joking.
Now, Ben Affleck is stoking the rumors himself during his promo tour of this weekend’s opening of Justice League. In an interview with USA Today this week, Affleck said The Batman is “something I’m contemplating,” later adding, “You don’t do it forever, so I want to find a graceful and cool way to segue out of it.”
Affleck added, “This is the one movie people have really been asking me about as I just go through my life.”
Then, in an interview with ExtraTV last week, he also sounded unsure about how he long he will be playing the character. When asked if he will continue to play Batman in two more movies after Justice League, Affleck commented, “I don’t know about that. We’ll see what the future holds.”
That said, Affleck said he was optimistic about his future, telling USA Today, “We certainly are in need of heroes in 2017. There’s a lot of stuff going on in the world, from natural to man-made disasters, and it’s really scary. Part of the appeal of this genre is wish fulfillment: Wouldn’t it be nice if there was somebody who can save us from all this, save us from ourselves, save us from the consequences of our actions and save us from people who are evil?”