Over at the The Hollywood Reporter they posted up an interesting story on the developments of how everything turned out the way it is now. Found out that director Zack Snyder and Warner Bros. were already working on ideas for another movie as soon as “Man of Steel” came out. Snyder started asking Ben Affleck if he was interested in being Batman.
STORY: Ben Affleck as Batman: Negative Backlash on Twitter, Petition Launched to Drop Actor
But Affleck was curious, and initial talks focusing on story and character began. Once Affleck was satisfied, WME’s Patrick Whitesell and Ziffren Brittenham’s Sam Fischer began negotiating his role in the Superman sequel. Sources say that Affleck has been signed for multiple other movies. The talks were so secretive that many Warner execs and most WME agents remained unaware of their existence.
The high-profile choice left fans stunned — thousands signed petitions for Warner Bros. to remove Affleck from the role, and a social media sentiment analysis firm estimated that 71 percent of tweets about the news in the first hour were negative. But years ago fans attacked Heath Ledger for after he was cast as the Joker, and in pre-Internet times,Michael Keaton when he landed the lead in Tim Burton‘s Batman. (Or, let’s not forget,Jon Favreau‘s in-hindsight-perfect choice of Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man.)
On one level, Affleck’s return to superheroes seems bewildering. The Oscar-winning co-writer of Good Will Hunting drew scorn after donning the red suit for Daredevil, and later agreed it wasn’t his best work. After he’d recovered and turned in a bravura performance directing and starring in The Town, Fox offered him the chance to direct and star in aDaredevil reboot — but Affleck turned it down.
More recently, Nolan offered Affleck the chance to direct Man of Steel. Affleck declined, seemingly because of a desire not to return to the world of capes — despite being an avowed comic book fan. But it turns out Warner Bros. had other plans. And indeed, the film acts as a canny show of force by the studio, which, with one announcement, publicly threw its support behind one of its signature stars. Warners just showed Hollywood that it’s still very much in the Ben Affleck business, a necessary move after his Argo took home the Best Picture Oscars — butKevin Tsujihara‘s ouster of Affleck champion Jeff Robinov left the studio’s many go-to talents uneasy.
Putting one of the studio’s signature stars in one of it’s signature franchises assuages those concerns and potentially keeps key figures in the fold, an important strategic move after the departure of not only Robinov but financier Legendary, a production partner with a talent-friendly reputation that’s financing films across town at Universal.
The closely-watched sequel also gets a handy bolstering of star power. While Cavill didn’t hurt Man of Steel‘s $289 million global box office while getting generally favorable reviews as Superman, he’s seen as an actor on the rise — not one who’s able to open or carry a tentpole franchise on his back. The first movie benefited from strong work byKevin Costner and Russell Crowe, but (spoiler alert!) both their characters died in the movie and are unlikely to return.
Affleck’s presence also hedges the movie against Nolan’s greatly lessened involvement. Nolan was heavily involved in Man of Steel‘s story and post-production, and was instrumental in the studio’s choice of Snyder as a director. But he’s busy in Canada shooting Interstellar, his sci-fi adventure movie. Affleck’s presence means a star who’s also demonstrated Oscar-caliber chops as a director and writer, which should prove handy on Snyder’s set.
I’m still baffled by the decision, but I’m slowly warming up to the idea. Ben Affleck’s career has a lot of credibility but will fans be totally on board with this decision? As far as Superhero movies go that he has done I don’t think he did a bad job as Daredevil so much as the script was bad. Same thing could be said about the Green Lantern movie. Maybe if all goes well in the future we might see him commit to a Justice League film.Which in the beginning they wanted him to direct but he turned down. To read more on this (Analysis) story head over to the source.
Source- The Hollywood Reporter