Ben Affleck is starting the next chapter of his career with his new film “The Way Back,” but he’s still very much connected to the Batman character he played across two films and was poised to direct in a solo project before walking away from it all. Robert Pattinson has been recast in the role for a new Batman film.
And yet, Affleck seems to have no regrets, telling Beliefnet, “I had an opportunity to write and direct and star in a stand-alone Batman and, you know, just (being at a) point in my life, I kind of lost interest in those stories.”
Clearly there are no hard feelings either that the franchise has moved on without him, as it inevitably would. “I’ll go see Robert’s version,” Affleck said. “I think it’s gonna be great. He’s great.”
The actor and director says he’s more interested in stories like “The Way Back” now, a sports film about redemption, following an alcoholic who gets a second chance as the basketball coach at his old high school. Here Affleck is bringing his all to a role that clearly resonates with his own personal struggles with addiction.
“We all have pain. We all have challenges of various types and degrees,” he told the outlet. “The question is really, how do we handle that? Do we suffer, fall apart, let it derail us? Or do we pick ourselves up and keep going? That choice is what ultimately defines us.”
When it was suggested that he could perhaps consider a return to Batman in 20 years or so, Affleck joked, “Maybe a very old Batman would be interesting, with a walker.”
Of course, comic fans have been following stories of “very old” Batmen for years, most notably with the critically-acclaimed “The Dark Knight Returns,” featuring a gritty Batman coming out of retirement, and the next-generation saga which features its own old Bruce Wayne, “Batman Beyond.”
Two decades is a long time to anticipate a new Batfleck film, but there is precedent for some very good stories with an older Bruce Wayne, so maybe fans can hang on to hope they’ll get that solo Affleck Bat-film, after all. We just wouldn’t recommend holding their breath.
Buffy the Vampire Humiliation
Later on his publicity tour, Affleck shifted from talking about his most recent projects to one of his earliest.
Thanks to a certain television series, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” has become a household name, but many don’t know it started as a one-off film in 1992 that wasn’t nearly as well received, and even fewer know that Ben Affleck was among its cast.
Even if they did, they’d be forgiven in not recognizing him based on the performance he gave, because it apparently was just that bad. And while Affleck doesn’t exactly remember the specifics of his one big scene in the film, he certainly remembers what happened when he saw it in the theaters.
Yes, he was in it, but not as he expected.
The actor opened up about the embarrassing debacle during an appearance with SiriusXM’s “The Jess Cagle Show,” telling the host, that he had one line in the film and thought director Fran Rubel Kuzui “seemed happy” with his work, so he did his job and moved on.
Then the film came out and he bought his own ticket to see himself on the big screen. “I went to the movie and I was like, ‘That is not my voice. That is not me,'” he said. “Apparently the director hated my performance so much that she looped the entire performance, which was one line.”
“So, yes, I am dubbed,” he emphasized. “In English!”
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