Warner Bros. is keen to create a shared movie universe around DC Comics, building on heavyweights like Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Cyborg, Aquaman and more. The first step in that direction is Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, pitting Henry Cavill's Superman against Ben Affleck's Batman.
Those last three words together is the stuff of nightmares for Bat-fans. When it was first announced that Affleck would be taking on the cape and cowl of Bruce Wayne/Batman, the reaction was... Well, fans were less than enthused.
To put it mildly.
Most of the nerdrage came from memories of Affleck's 2003 vehicle Daredevil, based on the Marvel comic book. Affleck is a one-note actor, his critics suggest, rarely demonstrating the kind of subtleties and nuances that a complicated superhero like Batman requires, and Daredevil is proof. (Batman, with his horrific childhood trauma and obsessive tendencies, could arguably be called the most psychologically complicated superhero there is.)
Daredevil found Affleck stepping into the shoes of blind lawyer Matt Murdock, who moonlights as the senses-heightened vigilante Daredevil. It had high ambitions, but failed to deliver on any of them, thanks mostly to uninspired direction and a script that fast-forwarded its way through several major storylines from the comics. Today, all that people remember about Daredevil is that it's where Affleck met his future wife, Jennifer Garner, and that overplayed rock song by Evanescence.
And crap like this.
In a new interview with NPR talking about his new movie Gone Girl, the 42-year-old actor sought to reassure Batman fans that Batman v. Superman won't be another Daredevil-sized debacle.
"Indeed I have regrets about Daredevil," Affleck told NPR. "I have regrets about all the movies that I don't think were executed properly." He went on to explain that he's very hard on himself, holding himself to "exacting standards" of excellence that he always strives for. "Look, if I thought we were remaking Daredevil, I'd be out there picketing myself," he added.
"It was written by Chris Terrio... who's not a comic guy," Affleck went on. The actor knows Terrio's work very well, since he also wrote Affleck's 2012 Academy Award winning film, Argo. "It's directed by Zack Snyder, who's an incredibly magical sort of visual stylist, who's steeped in the comic world. [So] you have this sandwich of talents."
Despite knowing how fans would react to his casting in Batman v. Superman, which is currently filming for a March 2016 release, Affleck explained that after meeting with Snyder and seeing his vision for the movie's direction, he decided it to go for it. And at least part of his motivation was to redeem himself in the eyes of superhero fans, by being part of a superhero movie that's actually good.
"I felt very confident about [signing on]," he told the interviewer.
We'll have to wait another year and a half to see if his feelings were justified.