"Right now we're having a very hard time. But I like the idea—it's like The Lord of the Rings in America. And it's about how we would reinvent ourselves as a society. If we started all over again, what would we do?"

Ben Affleck is having, by any measure, a really great year. Sure, in the process of promotinghe's been forced to answer a ton of questions about his ignominious half-decade of dating J-Lo and starring in flops, but that's a pretty small price to pay to have made a universally beloved, financially successful movie that completely reinvents you as a director to be taken seriously. Withcruising its way toward a Best Picture Oscar nomination and an inevitable slew of other awards, Affleck is still riding high, and still giving interviews that give us a little insight into what he might do next.Truth be told, Affleck could do just about anything, but he's been talking about a handful of projects specifically like the Whitey Bulger biopic to star Matt Damon that he claims is "not ready," an an adaptation of Stephen King's. As you might imagine, Affleck has admitted to GQ that wrangling the 823-page novel has been a pretty huge challenge:The "we" he's referring to is probably writer David Kajganich, who was brought on board nearly a year ago to write a new adaptation. But we haven't heard any updates on the project since then, and it seems fair to assume Affleck has been busy finishing and promotingin the meantime. But it's encouraging to hear he's still at work on it, even though it seems that first he'll be starring in a con drama and possibly adapting another Dennis Lehane novel . Once he's got that Best Director Oscar nomination, the sky will be pretty much the limit.