B

en Affleck is Batman. The Internet has had thoughts about this, almost none of them positive. The Internet is both very stupid and pretty much right: This Batman thing is a terrible idea. But not for Zach Snyder and the whole Batman/Superman mashup, because they just added the most talented person this project has.

It’s a terrible idea, yeah, but Ben Affleck is the one who has a lot to lose–and very little to gain.

Ben Affleck Doesn’t Suck. You Suck.

As I write this, the following Twitter hashtag is a thing: #BetterBatmanThanBenAffleck. That’s the zeitgeist of the decision, and it’s an indication that people are morons and that the Internet makes people morons to the power of large numbers.

The popular perception of Affleck seems to be impossibly overwhelmed by the opinions of people who pretend that they watched Gigli and who were like ten years old when Pearl Harbor was released. People who re-watch the Family Guy sketch in which Matt Damon chugs away at the Good Will Hunting script while Ben Affleck uselessly lounges behind him. Except that events since Good Will Hunting are evidence that, if anything, the roles in that skit should have been reversed; Hunting succeeds with the force of its lively Boston characters, its sincere but never quite sentimental view of Boston people, and, most of all, with its powerful sense of place. These are all characteristics you would be familiar with from Affleck’s films if you stopped watching Transformers sequels and started watching good things.

Since 2007, Ben Affleck’s track record as a director may be the best in Hollywood: the dark and captivating Gone Baby Gone, the lively, subtly genre-subverting The Town, and the Oscar-winning Argo. I say again: Oscar-winning Argo. Oscar-winning Ben Affleck. Whatever your opinion of the golden statuette’s significance, the reality is they don’t just give those things away to the guy farting on the couch. There is an Oscar on Ben Affleck’s shelf. This is the guy who is going to ruin the Batman of Zach Snyder, whose best film is a slow-motion cartoon that stars Gerard Butler’s abs?1

The B&G Community Responds

B&G contributors and friends took to Facebook to argue about what Twitter is (as I write this sentence) calling #Batfleck. “I’d be much more excited,” said B&G editor Ryan, “if the news was Affleck was going to produce or direct this movie.”2

Ryan continued:

When they announced the Batman/Superman mashup, they chose to draw the comparison to Frank Miller’s work from the 80s, which could be a great movie, but it’s ultimately a Batman story, and the narrative would have had to been built. If Nolan had wanted, he could have structured his trilogy to have Superman be the final Big Bad instead of Bane. Sure, it would have gone against gritty realism, but would have made for a kickass movie. This on the other hand, can’t escape the inevitable comparisons to The Avengers. It’s trying to capture that magic (money) by looking at the final product, and not the formula.

Ryan continued more:

Affleck is just further proof that that this project is poorly thought out and we’re bringing Batman back to the campy “Batman and Robin” era where the goal was to keep adding characters, because more villains fighting more heroes = great cinema, right?

Ryan dropped the mic:

To sum up, I was an early supporter of this ridiculous mashup, but by adding an actor I actually like, they’ve made me step off the bandwagon.

And then B&G contributor Elliott entered the fray:

DC’s history with movie botches is too long and too storied to overlook, especially considering that their only really successful franchise of late has been Nolan’s Batman, arguably because of its gritty realism…which is utterly inappropriate for any other facet of the DC universe. With Marvel, there’s a greater sense of compartmentalization: while things like the Avengers and the Illuminati cross Marvel’s various camps (mutant-science-magic-alien), each has its own corner of the sandbox in which to tell stories.

And how, Elliott, might DC overcome this terrible movie history?

If DC wants to succeed, they’ll have to embrace the utterly gonzo nature of their setting. Their iconic team includes a woman made from clay and given life by the Greek gods, three aliens, a dude with abandonment issues, a space cop with a psychic ring, and a guy who’s just mysterious fast because in their universe, speed is a sentient force that has its own afterlife. But they won’t do that. It wouldn’t work. And so they just flirt with it, limply.

And, finally, B&G contributor Steph:

We can never hope it will be as awesome and grand as it was in the comics for many reasons, not the least of which is that DC just can’t compete with Marvel. The ultimate Batman has been and will always be Nolan’s. He has captured the essence of what the Dark Knight is. The only hope this new project ever had was either to have Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Nightwing (which it doesn’t) and/or to have Nolan direct and Whedon write. That will never happen. Ergo it fails.

Because this is the Internet, I’ll sum up the point with short sentences that people might read.

Batman/Superman is a stupid idea.

Batman/Superman was never not a stupid idea. It’s irrelevant. It is a desperate attempt to play catchup with the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe thing. It is doomed to failure.

And Ben Affleck is the most talented person associated with the project.

The Tragedy of #Batfleck

The tragedy of #Batfleck begins with the realization that Affleck–he of the expertly-staged action sequence, he of the lively setting, he of the best suspense sequences remaining in film–may now be committed, for a half-decade or more, to these desperate Justice League shenanigans.

This leads us to Star Wars via an observation from friend of B&G and geek artist extraordinaire Sal:

Affleck managed to make me, a born and bred New Yorker, feel homesick for Boston of all places. He’s at his strongest working in what he considers his home turf, and like many men who came of age during the past quarter century, his home turf includes a galaxy far, far away.

We know Affleck was, at least, in the running to direct the first movie in the new Star Wars trilogy. Disney, of course, ultimately went with the obvious choice, perhaps because J. J. Abrams has already proved his ability to make successful Star Wars movies by actually making two successful Star Wars movies with Star Trek characters and a ship shaped like the Enterprise instead of like the Millennium Falcon.3

Inevitable lightsaber lens flares aside, I have a lot of confidence in Abrams’ ability to craft the best Star Wars movie since 1983 (especially if he allows the new trilogy to take inspiration from the Expanded Universe, even if it doesn’t draw directly from EU stories). But what happens if Abrams brings aboard Damon Lindelof and his merciless band of Lostees? What happens if Abrams lets Lindelof become the creative force behind the new trilogy’s equivalent to The Empire Strikes Back, turning one of the most exciting things in twenty-first century event cinema into something as disastrously disappointing and intelligence-insulting as Prometheus? Such a thing is a fate worse than Lucas.

By contrast, Affleck, with his underappreciated geek interests4 and with the rare filmmaking skills I’ve already detailed, could have created classics that pushed at the edges of the genre and taken Star Wars to new places. He would have boldly gone etc. Now he’s tied to the fate of inferior movie-makers, with an unappreciative public not ready to give him a chance, in a movie that itself won’t give him the opportunity to do justice to a character who has already been definitively brought to film.

No daring Affleck Star Wars. Perhaps fewer Affleck films altogether (after 2014’s promising Live By Night, another Affleck-directed, Affleck-scripted movie, he’s got nothing in the coming soon space of his directorial IMDB). A low-reward, high-risk, destined-for-mediocrity behemoth of a comic book movie project.

It would take a near-miraculous Affleck effort to score a win here. I hope he can do it. I might be wrong, but I don’t think a miracle is coming. I think Affleck is a solid actor and an exceptional filmmaker, and I think, based on this one thing that happened in 20035 and based on his public persona since, that he’s a standup guy.

Ben Affleck is too good for this Batman/Superman business, and the apparently rare Affleck fans, all geeks everywhere, Oscar season devotees, event cinema lovers, and folks who just like good movies are all going to lose.

Since I’m all of the above, I guess I’m going to lose more.

Ben Affleck photo via Flickr.