Last night, Warner Bros announced that Ben Affleck will be the new Batman in the 2015 BATMAN VERSUS SUPERMAN to be directed by MAN OF STEEL director, Zack Snyder.
Fan reaction has been mostly negative, and I can see why. In spite of Affleck’s recent successes with ARGO which won a Best Picture Oscar, few people think he has the acting chops and gravitas to replace Christian Bale.
Also, the WB had done something very different this time round. Back in 2000, when the WB was planning BATMAN BEGINS, the casting was wide open and the WB was determined to find a relatively unknown actor to reboot the franchise. The goal was to get an actor who could do the job, not a star who would be too costly. In fact, the part had originally been offered to Ben Affleck then, but his high asking price (reportedly $20 million) and his box office bombs (GIGLI, FORCES OF NATURE, CHANGING LANES, practically any of his movies in the early 2000s…) made the WB continue their Batman hunt with relative unknowns. What this meant was that it was an opportunity for Christian to get Batman fan support as well as the well-organized Baleheads to begin lobbying the WB to cast Christian as the Dark Knight.
Fast forward to this year. What do we get? Every rumored actor – from Ryan Gosling, Orlando Bloom, Eric Bana, Josh Brolin – was evaluated by the fan community. And when Christopher Nolan himself decided to support Wes Bentley (AMERICAN BEAUTY), it seemed as if Bentley’s chances were skyrocketing. Numerous web sites and news outlets confidently predicted that auditions were to begin in September. Bizarrely, a rumor began to circulate that the WB was offering $50 million to Christian to reprise the role.
So where on earth did this sudden Ben Affleck announcement come from?
Politics as usual. Affleck is represented by the same agent and agency as Christian Bale. And what an agent does is wheel and deal, so unlike the last Batman casting campaign, this time, the casting was done behind closed-doors with no eye at all toward fan lobbying. Christian’s agent managed to get Affleck on the list and convince a nervous WB that they needed a star to guarantee BATMAN VS SUPERMAN’s success. This wasn’t the case back in 2005 for BATMAN BEGINS, and it surely wasn’t the case in MAN OF STEEL when relative unknown Henry Cavill became Superman, so there’s absolutely no logic behind needing to cast someone like Ben Affleck who has the baggage of a decade of bad movies as well as the huge bomb, DAREDEVIL. Also DC Comics doesn’t have the same multi-movie strategy as the much more organized and prolific Marvel, so they are counting on this combination of their 2 legendary superheroes to be successful. (Sort of like ALIEN VS PREDATOR but without the stinkbomb factor.)
By making the sudden announcement, you can bet that the WB (as well as Affleck) are watching fan reaction now. Affleck knows what he’s up against, and it’d be foolish for him to do an imitation of Christian’s Batman. He is 11 years older than Henry Cavill so with the cowl and cape on, he might just end up making Cavill look really good.:)
I’m disappointed that Wes Bentley didn’t get the part. I’m disappointed that an unknown actor didn’t get a chance to surprise us. But the movie is 2 years away, and it gives everyone the chance to calm down, wait for Summer 2015 with sharpened knives…:)
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