Ben Affleck Really, Really Didn’t Like Working On “Justice League”
This would likely explain why Ben Affleck looked like he would rather spend 90 minutes on the phone with Dunkin’ Donuts customer service support over a glitchy DD Perks Rewards card than do one more promotional appearance for Justice League back in 2017. Even if you haven’t seen Justice League, you likely know that Ben Affleck played Batman, and it wasn’t too long after he took off his rubber Batman suit that he started putting out vibes that he really didn’t want to do it. Ben recently made it known that it wasn’t just the whole Batman thing he wasn’t feeling; the whole experience of filming Justice League was off for a number of reasons, which made for one of the worst working experiences he’s ever experienced.
Justice League included Batman, played by Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill’s Superman, Jason Momoa’s Aquaman, Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman, and others. On paper, it probably sounded like a guarantee to make a billion dollars at the box office. It did make some money, but not as much as expected, and the reviews weren’t great. Behind the scenes, things were a bit of a mess. Director and co-writer Zach Snyder had to step away from the project after the unexpected death of his daughter. He was replaced by Joss Whedon, who allegedly behaved like a toxic asshole on set.
This was also around the same time that Ben was in a battle against addiction and struggle for recovery, and was navigating the reality that his estranged wife Jennifer Garner had finally filed for divorce. So, not exactly a recipe for success. Ben spoke about making Justice League during an interview with The Los Angeles Times to promote The Tender Bar. Ben first spoke about dropping out of directing a follow-up to Justice League, Batman, a movie he was going to direct after deciding not to play Batman again. He says was a choice made simply because he just really didn’t think he’d like doing it.
“Directing Batman is a good example. I looked at it and thought, ‘I’m not going to be happy doing this. The person who does this should love it.’ You’re supposed to always want these things, and I probably would have loved doing it at 32 or something. But it was the point where I started to realize it’s not worth it. It’s just a wonderful benefit of reorienting and recalibrating your priorities that once it started being more about the experience, I felt more at ease.”
But also, let’s face it – a part of Ben probably didn’t want to direct Batman because he had such a trash time on the set of Justice League. It can’t be a coincidence!
“It was really Justice League that was the nadir for me. That was a bad experience because of a confluence of things: my own life, my divorce, being away too much, the competing agendas and then [director] Zack [Snyder]’s personal tragedy and the reshooting. It just was the worst experience. It was awful. It was everything that I didn’t like about this. That became the moment where I said, ‘I’m not doing this anymore.’ It’s not even about, like, Justice League was so bad. Because it could have been anything.”
To be fair, it sounds like it was just an overall terrible time in Ben’s life to be working on such a project, and it doesn’t sound like things were better when he got to set. There have been numerous allegations about Joss Whedon’s behavior on the set of Justice League. So likely, everything was bad for Ben. But this is good news for someone, and that’s the entire cast and crew of Gigli! The internet repeatedly will have you believe that Gigli is Ben’s worst movie. And now we have confirmation from Ben himself that his worst experience was Justice League. Everyone who worked on Gigli can hold their heads high today. Because at least they’re not the reason Ben is waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night and screaming, “No! No more reshoots! I won’t put the cape on again!”
Pic: Wenn.com