Ben Affleck may have hung up the cape and cowl, but his frustrations with the Batman years are proving harder to leave behind. While promoting his new Netflix kidnapping thriller, “Animals,” the actor and director revisited his troubled experience in Zack Snyder’s DC universe on Josh Horowitz’s “Happy Sad Confused” podcast. In particular, Affleck expressed his anger over how Warner Bros. handled Snyder’s departure from “Justice League,” a bitter experience that also helped extinguish his own ambitions to direct a standalone Batman movie.

That project reportedly would have ventured into Arkham Asylum and featured Joe Manganiello’s Deathstroke, a character briefly introduced in a post-credits scene. But whatever enthusiasm Affleck once had for the film evaporated after “Justice League.” “I was considering at a time directing a standalone Batman movie after that and did not feel like ultimately I wanted to do that,” he explained.

However, it wasn’t the character that soured him on the experience. Affleck still has considerable affection for his Dark Knight interpretation, particularly the older, battle-scarred version inspired by Frank Miller’s comics. “And I liked playing that character, particularly this sort of older, broken, very much derived from—wholly derived from Frank Miller’s book. That’s what we were trying to do with that ‘Batman v Superman,’” he said.

Unfortunately, that enthusiasm couldn’t survive what happened next. “But, you know, the truth is that the experience of ‘Justice League’ for me was so, so negative for lots of different reasons,” Affleck recalled. “Some of which having to do just with where I was personally, some of which having to do with some of the tragedy that happened during that time.”

For Affleck, the production became a particularly ugly example of what happens when a studio and its director find themselves fundamentally at odds. “I really saw how not to make a movie like that, which is when the studio is at odds with the filmmaker,” he explained. “You know, starting at the worst possible, you’re really making a mistake. And, you know, that was what really doomed that.”

More pointedly, Affleck suggested that Snyder’s departure wasn’t simply a matter of the filmmaker stepping away following a family tragedy. He believes the studio exploited those circumstances to remove him from the production.

“Boy, that was shitty, that him being taken off that movie and the reshoots that we did. That was the low—if you want the low point of my career, was that,” he said. “The personal thing, you know, somebody’s death by suicide, that eclipses everything. And then the way in which that was, I thought frankly, used as an excuse, I just thought was one of the shittiest things I’d ever seen.”

Affleck wasn’t the only cast member left with bitter memories of the production. He also alluded to the experiences of Ray Fisher, Gal Gadot, and others during the reshoots overseen by Snyder’s replacement, Joss Whedon, while acknowledging that much of what he knew came secondhand.

“And then the whole environment and vibe, much of which I wasn’t privy to, but that I sort of heard about secondhand in terms of Ray and Gal and other people’s experiences,” Affleck said. “It was just like, ‘Wow, this is about as gross as it gets.’”

Snyder eventually got an opportunity to revisit the film after the theatrical version, completed under Whedon’s supervision, received a largely negative response. Warner Bros. and HBO Max provided additional funding for the filmmaker to finish “Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” a substantially longer version that arrived in 2021 to a warmer reception.

For Affleck, the whole ordeal appears to have left a lasting impression, even if he remains fond of the character he played.

Just came across this amazing custom steelbook on the Masters of Steel Instagram! 🔥 #RestoreTheSnyderVerse

Another Flop

For real

Real Snyder fans know that the Gunn verse is about to meet its end in 2027. Superman 2025 failed to surpass Man of Steel in the box office. Supergirl flopped. Clayface will flop. Lanterns was awful. At this point, Gunn's DC universe has been a failure. That's a good thing. Gunn ruined something he created. At this point, it is only a matter of time before his inevitable exit. It is a great thing that individuals like Ann Sarnoff, Walter Hamada, Toby Emerich and soon Peter Safran are and will be gone so they don't get in Snyder's way. The new regime should bring back Snyder. They should be able to see that his movies actually made money. We will the DC brand once again be a powerhouse under the guide of Zack Snyder.

Zacks movies were unique, and we loved them because he was different. He made bold, unexpected choices for the fans, not a committee of suits in a boardroom. His films might have been divisive for people who didnt want to engage with them, but the majority understood and saw his vision. Mature, grounded ideas in a mythic world.

When he was forced out by Warner Bros, the quality, writing and box office went to shit. They dont know what to do, because they dont have Zack to guide them. Now the MCU is suffering from the same thing. Bad writing, too silly, too childish, flopping. They are scared of making movies inspired by Zack Snyder, like many of their better films were, because he got removed. They think they cant make serious, gritty, adult movies for smart audiences anymore.

His removal had a ripple effect on Superhero movies in general. If we want better superhero movies in general, we have to restore the Snyderverse! Bring Zack back and let him inspire the rest!

Purchased Man Of Steel UHD today.

Bit annoyed it wasn't in sleeve like the HMV website showed it. I may also purchase the 3in1 trilogy box set.

Starting off a collection in my adult life. Tryna build a collection of stuff worth own physical in this digital world.

The filmmaker shared a behind-the-scenes image from Justice League on Instagram featuring Batman standing with his arms extended in a Christ-like pose on the film set. Snyder kept the caption short: “Faith, Alfred. Faith.”

Naturally, fans had plenty to say about it. Within hours of Snyder posting the image, it had pulled in more than 70,800 likes and 2,000 comments. A lot of the responses celebrated Snyder’s take on the DC universe, while others once again brought out the #RestoreTheSnyderVerse hashtag in hopes that his original plans might someday continue.

The photo is another reminder that Snyder’s DC movies still have a very active fanbase years after his run with the franchise came to an end.

Snyder eventually got the chance to complete his intended version of Zack Snyder’s Justice League, which arrived on HBO Max in 2021 with a massive 242-minute runtime. The movie brought Batman, Wonder Woman, Cyborg, Aquaman, the Flash, and Superman together against Steppenwolf, and it became HBO Max’s fourth-most-streamed film of that year.

I want to start this post by clarifying that I'm not the biggest fan of Zack Snyder's take on DC or his interpretations of its characters. That being said, I have a lot of respect for him and genuinely think he had some cool ideas in his movies.

So, my question is: why hasn't the Snyderverse been continued in some form yet?

There's clearly an audience for it, and other DC properties, such as Michael Keaton's Batman duology, have received continuations in the form of comics. So why not the Snyderverse?

I think a graphic novel with an art style similar to his Justice League storyboards would be awesome!

Article: Horror Movies and Politics Are Killing Film Festivals

The film festival circuit is drowning in bloody genre fare and ideological theater. Whatever happened to indie cred?

I don’t know why Zack Snyder went to TIFF to premiere his movie. Unless he filmed himself giving Prime Minister Mark Carney a life-saving blood transfusion while chanting “From the river to the sea,” the war thriller The Last Photograph was never going to win that audience over.

That audience is the film festival audience, a volatile, reliably left-of-center social media jumble of disgruntled film students, part-time activists/baristas, laid-off drunk sports writers, couples therapy podcasters in denial about the furry husband, all of them believing they are the better Yorgos Lanthimos.

[...]

I think Zack Snyder should step in and finish The Batman Part II if Matt Reeves can't.

After all, Snyder knows better than anyone what it's like to have to step away from a DC movie because of a family tragedy. Back in 2017, he left Justice League after losing his daughter, and Warner Bros. brought in Joss Whedon to finish the movie.

Instead of preserving Snyder's original vision, the film underwent major rewrites and reshoots, resulting in something different from what Snyder had intended.

That's exactly why I think Snyder would be a good choice. Having experienced firsthand what it's like to have another director take over his project and change his work, he'd probably be much more respectful of Matt Reeves' vision.

I genuinely believe Snyder would try to finish the movie the way Reeves intended rather than impose his own style or completely rewrite the story. He knows how much a director's creative vision means and how frustrating it can be to have that taken away.

Who better to respect another filmmaker's vision than someone who knows what it's like to have his own disregarded?

Gerry Cardinale, founder and managing partner of investment firm Redbird, is deeply involved with both Skydance and Ben Affleck's production company Artists Equity. He is a founding partner and investor in Affleck's company, which started in 2022. Some of the films Artists Equity has released include Air, Accountant 2, The Rip and the new film Animals.

Not long after helping to start Affleck's company, Cardinale went on to become the most significant investor in Skydance's purchases of both Paramount and WB, next to the Ellisons themselves. He invested a combined $6 billion into the acquisitions, and sits on the board of Skydance. He and the Ellisons are the sole holders of Paramount Class A common stock, which gives them 100% control of the new, combined company’s voting shares.

See this article for more details on Cardinale's involvement with Skydance.

Ben Affleck sat on a stage with Cardinale in 2024 for a CNBC interview discussing Affleck's production company. There, Affleck offered warm words to Cardinale and the Ellisons as the soon-to-be owners of Paramount (the deal was being worked out at this time). He said that they're not "management class," but they are involved owners who care about telling good stories. He even likened them to Harry and Jack Warner, the founders of Warner Brothers (although this interview pre-dated any discussions of Skydance acquiring Warner Brothers).

See this article for more details of that interview.

With Ben Affleck having this close, and very high level connection to Skydance via his business partnership with Gerry Cardinale, it will be interesting to see if this leads to Affleck working on any films for the newly merged studio. (Note that Skydance did co-produce Affleck's 2023 movie Air.)

After Watchmen maybe.

Grant Morrison has watched the Lanterns finale, and the DC Comics legend is calling the ending “a morally and legally incoherent conclusion.”

Morrison, who wrote The Green Lantern at DC with artist Liam Sharp, shared the verdict in the latest Xanaduum newsletter while answering reader mail.

It follows Morrison’s August review of the premiere, which said Kyle Chandler was playing Doctor McCoy, not Hal Jordan.

The GunnGooners review bombed it after episodes 1 and 2 pushing its RT score to 90%. But with every new episode, the score just kept dropping. Lanterns Now Has The Lowest Rotten Tomatoes Fan Score Of Any DCU Project. Lower than Supergirl 72% RT score💀

I was out Ross looking around and I just happened to come across this. It's 12.99 and there are multiple of them

Genuinly , you have to be the most delusional mf alive to think any thing in the DCU which had a ''source material'' was supergirl and we all know how that turned out (turned a colorful and amazing comic into more browner than any snyder film lmao) , honestly , this is the other way around as BvS alone took inspiration from like 5 different comics (birthright , TDKR , superman peace on earth to name a few)