We finally got some now-useless information on Ben Affleck’s Batman movie
It sounds like Ben Affleck's Batman could’ve been cool. Oh, well.
Aux News Batman
Alternate timelines are commonplace in Hollywood. It’s probably why movies where a bunch of Spider-Mans talk to each other are popular. The sliding doors of show business can lead anyone to rest their heads in their hands, gaze toward the heavens, and wonder what could’ve been. Ah, time, if only there were enough of you to make every movie.
One film bound for the annals of the What-Could’ve-Been-iverse is Ben Affleck’s Batman movie. For a short time, Affleck’s caped crusader aimed to make some sense out of Zack Snyder’s DCEU. Alas, it was not meant to be. After Justice League, he was done. “Justice League, that was the nadir for me,” he said last year. “A confluence of things: my own life, my divorce, being away too much, the competing agendas, and then Zack’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.’”
While we’re happy that Mr. Affleck has since bounced back—he has since married Jennifer Lopez—we’d still like to know more about Batman. Earlier this year, Affleck confirmed that Joe Manganiello’s Deathstroke would’ve been the villain. “I was at the time really trying to hone in and focus on that character and get into depth and detail about it to make him seem as impressive as I felt there was the opportunity to do.”
More recently, though, Jay Oliva, a storyboard artist who worked on numerous DCEU movies, gave the world more information and an opinion: “It was the best. It was amazing.” Speaking to Inverse, Oliva whets the fandom’s appetites with a dish we’ll never get to taste. Oliva said he saw what he believes to be the second draft of the script and that Affleck’s approach was all-encompassing.
“I’ve worked on a lot of Batman things, and what was really cool about it was it was tying together a lot of really cool Batman storylines that had never been really explored,” he said. “Ben’s story was gonna cover something that had never really been covered in comics but was building off of storylines in the Batman mythos over the last 80 years and approaching it from a new kind of perspective.”
Maybe, one day, that script will make its way into a comic book, but for now, we’ll have to suffice for Oliva’s opinion.
“It was very clever, and there were a lot of things about it that I really loved that I wish that had come to fruition,” he said. “It was a really great project in the beginning. Ben had to step away for personal reasons, and I totally understood, but the time that I spent with Ben working on the project was fantastic.”
“Maybe someday I can spill the beans,” he adds, “but I still can’t talk about it.”
We await the day, Mr. Oliva.
46 Comments
He did make a damn fine DKR Batman, I’ll give him that.
Peter weller was great casting for that batman.
Weller was ok, but I would have liked Conroy and Hamill. After all those years it would have been a great way to end the arc. Hamill could have finally let loose and make The Joker even creepier and Conroy could have really shown his range in how lost Batman was at that point.
ehhh it was mostly fine but I’m pissed at how he altered one of the most tragic parts of the book:
The scene in the movie removes any empathy that Batman showed toward the general and pretty much had him encouraging the guy to take his own life by putting the gun in front of him and walking away. Olivia said in an interview that he wanted to do a “Casino Royale” esque confrontation but IMO the scene was ruined by those changes.
Agreed, I got to that part and was disappointed with the changes.
what sounds cool, exactly? that was vague gibberish
The A.V. Club
They could’ve at least tried for Authentic Frontier.
Olson Johnson is right! What kind of people are we, anyhow?
Simple farmers. People of the land. The common clay of the new A.V. Club. You know… morons.
Never mind that shit…here comes a slideshow!
Unless I’m missing something here, this gives us exactly no new information about the movie
“It would’ve been totally dope, unique, unconventional, boss, fresh, challenging, balls-to-the-wall. Unfortunately NDAs prevent me from saying anything further.”
“You’ve heard the phrase ‘get busy’? Well, this is a Dark Knight who gets bizz-ay. Thoroughly and consistently.”
They told Affleck that this Batman was going to Rastafied by at least 10%, and he knew it was the right time to walk away.
The only Affleck Batman movie I’ll tolerate is one written and directed by Kevin Smith, with Matt Damon as Robin, and Jason Lee as Commissioner Gordon.
Commissioner Gordon: Batman! The Joker is robbing the fireworks factory!Batman: I’m on my way!(85 minute sequence of Batman driving there)
the transcript of the conversation
Krusty WB: So he’s proactive, huh?
Network Executive Lady Affleck: Oh, God, yes. We’re talking about a totally outrageous paradigm.
In comics, every single take is a “fresh”, “new”, “based upon something never explored before” story. Every damn one. It’s gotten so bad that it’s kinda codewords for “This story is going to explore some bit of trivia from panel 4 on page 13 of this obscure issue from 1992 that nobody remembers not even the original writer of that panel, but what if that obscure bit of trivia was like, critical, to understanding the entire psyche of the main character and completely re-writes everything that happened the last 50/60/70/80 years of the character RIGHT up until the very end when we learn that, nah, it really doesn’t change anything and it all goes back to effectively what was before with little to no changes?”
I heard it was allegedly “trill”.
The only reason I waiting around for the comments (i.e. finished the article and scrolled down) was because I was sure this would be the sentiment. it’s the only thing that didn’t disappoint
This is the “I have a girlfriend, she lives in Canada” of movie rumors.
I enjoyed that adaptation DC and Sam Hamm did for a “what could’ve been” story about Keaton’s Batman and Billy Dee’s Harvey Dent becoming Two-Face. Would love if they could do something like that here. Hell, Ben and Kevin Smith are good friends. Get Smith on the horn and have him work on an adaptation for a miniseries.
Alternate timelines are commonplace in Hollywood.Because that’s how the business works: somebody tries something, it works, and then we’re inundated with copycat after copycat until it all becomes a spectacular mess and falls apart.
Am I the only one who thinks Deathstroke the Terminator is a ridiculously over-the-top villain name, and prefers for him to simply be known as Slade?
I think it is over the top but it makes sense to have a moniker than just him use his first name even if it is a cool first name.
I prefer it if he just goes by his last name and keeps attacking Batman from behind a fence.
Slade “The “Deathstroke” Terminator” Wilson
I always referred to him as “Deathstork.”
Sounds like a villain from a fundie anti-abortion comic.
I mean, he was supposed to fight against a guy named “Batman” and he’s known as the main villain of a group named “Teen Titans,” comics should always have delightfully silly names.
Fair point.
What’s the point of being a super villain if you can’t have an over-the-top villain name?
Oh great just what the snyder fans need. An argument based on nothing real that this film would have been a masterpiece. I bet they wont take that and run insanely far with it…
If I remember correctly snyder fans insisting that the (at the time) not real snyder cut was a masterpiece. Claiming that films that don’t exist are amazing is like… their favourite argument.
Jay, plagerist, Olivia? https://geektyrant.com/news/warner-bros-animation-accused-of-plagiarizing-batman-vs-robin-fight-sequence-from-youtube-series
damn the video
https://www.mynewsdesk.com/sg/pitchmark/news/dcs-batman-vs-robin-accused-of-copying-fight-sequence-from-youtube-series-360055
I would have loved to have seen it.
Buzz among the insiders is that it was going to feature an eccentric rich guy who likes to dress as a bat and punch the crime out of people.
Will that play in Central City?
Wally West was a millionaire for a while, so it might?
Two words. Egg Head!
to followup on my post from yesterday, this morning on Instagram I saw a fake poster for this film with 10,000 likes. I really wish they’d stop giving Snyder fans these straws of nothing to grasp on to. Just let James Gunn start his thing already Ben Affleck doesn’t want to do it anymore. Like… what do Snyder fans not understand about Ben Affleck not wanting to do it and Henry Cavill not having that job anymore…? They live in a fantasy world in their heads.
“Ben’s story was gonna cover something that had never really been covered in comics but was building off of storylines in the Batman mythos over the last 80 years and approaching it from a new kind of perspective.”Finally, someone covering the lost, ‘buried’ years of his adoption by Aunt Harriet and being secretly kept as a sex slave.
“Finally, someone covering the lost, ‘buried’ years of his adoption by Aunt Harriet and being secretly kept as a sex slave.”
This is a literal nothing of an article.