Take notes, Best Actor Joaquin Phoenix. Ben Affleck is out to prove he’s the real Joker.
In a new interview with BeliefNet about his upcoming movie, the sports drama “The Way Back,” Batfleck also opened up about why he left the role of the caped crusader.
Affleck first confirmed that “yeah,” the door is closed on going back to the role, saying, “I had the opportunity to write and direct and kind of star in a standalone ‘Batman,’ and it just happened at a point in my life where I lost interest in those stories.”
“I’ll go see [Robert Pattinson’s version]. I think it’s gonna be great. He’s great. But this is the kind of story that I’m interested in telling now,” he said, referring to “The Way Back.”
At the interviewer’s suggestion that he return 20 years from now in a film, he joked, “Maybe a very old Batman would be interesting, with a walker.”
Affleck’s gradual departure from Batman has been a saga with more drama than the Marvel and DC movies combined.
The actor’s first go at the role, 2016′s “Batman v Superman,” notably gave birth to the Sad Affleck meme following the movie’s less-than-flattering reviews. Then in 2017, after the actor dropped out of directing the new “Batman” movie, he appeared at San Diego Comic-Con doing his darnedest to convince everyone who believed he hated playing Batman that he actually thought it was “fucking amazing.”
“I would be a fucking ape on the ground for Matt Reeves, never mind being Batman,” he said at the time about the “War for the Planet of the Apes” filmmaker taking over as director.
When HuffPost asked “Aquaman” star Jason Momoa in 2018 about his reaction to reports Affleck was leaving, he said, “Ben is an amazing director that is of age, and probably he’s done enough.”
In January 2019, it was finally confirmed that Affleck was vacating the role, and he later spoke about it on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” saying he dropped out because he couldn’t crack the script. But, as Uproxx points out, the actor added in a recent New York Times interview that the troubled filming of “Justice League” and alcohol abuse had to do with it too.
After showing the “Batman” script to a friend, they reportedly told him, “I think the script is good. I also think you’ll drink yourself to death if you go through what you just went through again.”
At least now Affleck’s got jokes. He may not have Gotham anymore, but he’s still got Gotham Comedy Club.
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