A surprising amount of the fallout over Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice‘s brutal reviews and (comparatively) underwhelming box office has played out in the public eye, which means a lot of eyebrows got raised when Ben Affleck was announced to be executive-producing Justice League.
It’s no secret that Affleck was stung by the negative reception and felt somewhat trapped in a creative vision gone south after not only committing to multiple films playing Batman but to a solo Batman pic he’d direct. Letting him executive-produce Justice League, which The Hollywood Reporter says involves working with scribe Chris Terrio to “fine-tune the script” and finalizing the blockbuster in post-production, seemed like Warner Bros. simultaneously trying to appease Affleck and push someone of his creative talents to influence the slate more prominently.
Recently, Birth.Movies.Death‘s Devin Faraci emerged with some interesting scoop on exactly what’s been happening behind the scenes with Affleck and WB, saying that:
“Affleck was incredibly unhappy about the reception of BvS. He felt humiliated after spending so much of the press tour saying how much better this film would be than Daredevil. On top of that his agent was furious when Kevin Tsujihara jumped the gun and announced him as the director of The Batman – there were still negotiations happening. This move seems to help placate Affleck while also edging Zack Snyder out of a controlling central position in the DC Movieverse.”
Snyder’s future with WB and DC after Batman V Superman‘s critical drubbing suddenly seems much more tenuous than it did a few months ago. The studio had posited him as the creative mastermind of the Movieverse, someone whose guiding hand would influence every picture and shape the arc of the franchise’s first chapter – but then Batman V Superman got slammed, which surely got a lot of people high up at WB wondering whether Snyder’s fingerprints might be best wiped off.
It’s too late to take Justice League away from him, given the accelerated production schedule and probably a fair number of contractual conditions, but getting Affleck as involved as possible basically indicates that the studio is banking on the guy to help right the currently sinking ship they’ve stored a hefty chunk of change aboard. And who can blame them? Affleck is a damn good filmmaker with an Oscar under his belt and the newfound affection of DC fanatics who once thrashed him for taking on the Caped Crusader. He’s the kind of person WB/DC likely wants to invest in as thoroughly as he’ll let them.
