The Batman: 8 Reasons You Should Be Concerned Affleck Quit
Well, he did say he'd go if it wasn't good enough...
The news that Ben Affleck has quit as director of the upcoming Batman stand-alone is not something anyone should be happy about. Sure, his statement says he's pulling out for the right reasons, wanting to protect the project and allow someone to give it the attention it needs, but it's hard not to feel very, very deflated.
Affleck was a major boon for the DCEU and a big peg for everyone - even the most cynical of fanboys - to hang confidence on. Even if Justice League failed; even if Wonder Woman crashed; even if everything somehow imploded, Affleck's Batman would surely still hit it out of the park. No matter how many other directors left DC projects, we still had Affleck...
But now he's gone and Warner Bros are faced with a quest to hire someone else that they surely could have done without. Whether the film can possibly hit its expected release date now remains to be seen (which they'll surely be delighted about), but really they should be more concerned that they've just lost one of the most talented modern directors from their slate...
Here's exactly why you really need to be concerned as well...
8. He Said He'd Leave If It Wasn't Good Enough
The single loudest endorsement of the upcoming Batman movie now will be Ben Affleck's own words when he was challenged on his future with the project.
"I’m still working on the script. I’m not going to write and direct anything that I don’t think is good enough to be made," he told EW. "I’m definitely going to make sure I have something that is special — there’s not enough money in the world to make a mediocre version of Batman worth it."
Oh dear.
So are we really to take Affleck's statement that he's committed to finding the best director for the job as confirmation that he simply can't juggle the requirements? Or that he's actually delivering on the threat that he's already publicly aired fairly recently? This is not a good moment for the DCEU's publicity machine, given how hard those words are coming back to bite them (at least from the outside).