Ben Affleck vs. Superman

Ben Affleck in Argo

Ben Affleck joins the Superman franchise as the titular character… Batman. Chris Neumer investigates.

by Chris Neumer

So Ben Affleck is the new Batman.

If you’re wondering where the hype was leading up to this announcement—while a quick Google search reveals that they are out there, I can’t recall reading or even seeing any articles speculating who should play the new Batman prior this week’s unveiling —suffice it to say that there are enough footnotes and asterisks here explain this away. Most notably, Affleck is playing Batman in a non-Batman movie. Affleck’s Batman is going to be a supporting character in Man of Steel 2: Batman vs. Superman (This is Warner Brothers’ not-so-subtle attempt to copy the success that Disney had with Marvel’s superhero mash-up, The Avengers).

The minute word of this casting was made public, the Internet nearly exploded. I’d argue that positive reactions to the choice of Affleck as Bruce Wayne were few and far between… if I thought that I could legitimately argue that there were a ‘few’ positive reactions out there. I looked for them and found two. Ish. One writer concluded his article by stating, “And hey, ultimately, Warner Bros’ #1 job is to get people talking about this movie… People sure are talking.”  The other writer wrote that Affleck deserved a chance to play the part before people started trashing him.

Seemingly more level heads are reminding people that the Internet didn’t like Heath Ledger’s casting as The Joker in The Dark Knight either and that one turned out pretty well. And while this is true, I think it misses the overarching feelings that are swirling about Affleck’s casting and the Superman/Batman project as a whole: namely, it is such an act of desperation that nothing about it makes much sense.

Superman has a reputation as being the first superhero. He was the first superhero in comic books and he was the first superhero to receive his own movie in 1978’s eponymous film, Superman. Once other superheroes—generally speaking, superheroes with personalities and flaws—receive a similar treatment, Superman’s popularity wanes. From a box office stand point, Batman, Wolverine, Iron Man, Spider-Man and even Hancock have all become far more popular than Superman.

However, since over the course of the last 15 years Warner Brothers has paid something along the lines of $50-$75 million for the rights to Superman (and the legal fees that came with enforcing those rights), they keep trotting out their man of steel despite the fact that they are perpetually underwhelmed at the fruits of their labor.

henry-cavill-supermanTheir first attempt at a reboot of the franchise—the non-existent, yet much talked of Nicolas Cage/Tim Burton project, Superman Lives—languished in development hell for much of the late 90s before finally fizzling out around the year 2000.* Then came Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns. After nearly 20 years without a Superman film hitting the screen, Singer’s did and was such an all around disaster that it was deemed a failure and its sequel immediately squashed in spite of the fact that it pulled in $200 million domestically. Another reboot hit screens this year in Man of Steel and, again, despite a huge marketing campaign and a roughly $225 million budget, the movie couldn’t crack $300 million domestically. While Man of Steel’s $290 million box office is a lot of money, as a notable producer once memorably told me, you don’t spend $400 million making and marketing a movie hoping to get $300 million domestically.

* This iteration of Superman is worth mentioning because both Cage and Burton got paid for their work even though nothing was ever shot. This is why it helps to have a good agent who can work in the pay-or-play clause into your contract.

That about brings us up to date.

Looking forward, the one thing Warner Brothers simply cannot do is reboot the Superman franchise yet again or make any normal type of sequel. They know it won’t work. At this point, the studio really only had two options in front of it: 1) They could accept that Superman simply is not an acceptably profitable franchise at this point and shelve the materials completely, or 2) They could accept that Superman simply is not an acceptably profitable franchise at this point and do to Superman what Marvel did with the Hulk, giving up on him by his lonesome and dropping him into an ensemble superhero piece, ala The Avengers.

The only problem with #2 is that, unlike Marvel’s stable of characters, the movie going public has resoundingly rejected movies about DC comic superheroes. The list of these movies reads like a what’s what of failed franchises including Catwoman, Superman Returns, Watchmen, Jonah Hex and Green Lantern. DC Comic properties simply doesn’t have any kind of fanbase… with one very notable exception: Batman (unless there’s a huge fanboy contingent demanding a Plastic Man movie that I’m not aware of).

And thus, we have the breaking news that Batman is going to be making an appearance in Man of Steel 2. It’s the only thing that they could think of that has a chance of saving the Superman franchise: make it Batman. This is peculiar in its own right because, if The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises are any indication, Batman movies are about as much a lock on a $1 billion take worldwide as any movie out there. Peculiar because Warner Brothers is choosing not to make a movie that would be a guaranteed success—Batman Lives?—in favor of dropping their most successful character into the otherwise failing Superman franchise. If you doubt the validity of this, consider the following: the combined box office takes of Superman Returns and Man of Steel don’t surpass The Dark Knight Rises’ worldwide gross ($1.039 billion for the two Superman movies and $1.084 billion for The Dark Knight Rises).

It’s into this morass that Affleck was dropped. From Affleck’s perspective, it’s kind of hard to see the upside of taking on the role of Bruce Wayne. If the movie is a runaway hit, people will attribute that to the character of Batman, not Affleck. If the movie is a huge failure, that will be on Affleck.* All and all, it’s a rather interesting choice, especially given that Affleck’s last work came on the Academy Award winning film, Argo. Win an Oscar for making the best film of the year and then suit up as Batman in something that, if it flames out, will be added to your already flame laden reputation?

* My colleague, Kevin Withers, has posited that Affleck was cast simply to give Warner Brothers studio executives a scapegoat should the project fail. This makes so much sense within the parameters of Hollywood logic that I’m genuinely surprised I haven’t seen anything else written about it.

And we haven’t yet gotten into the whole bit where, when we last saw him, Bruce Wayne had given up being Batman or the part where the Chris Nolan Batman trilogy primed audiences for a more real Batman… who is now set to meet an alien who can fly and see through walls, Superman, and then do battle with him.

By the time I waded through the many, many incongruities and baffling choices here at play to arrive to the actual decision to cast Ben Affleck, I shrugged. Certainly, it’s a tad confusing as to why Warner Brothers wouldn’t make Christian Bale a Godfather-like offer to appear as Batman in Man of Steel 2 and 3; Bale is definitely in the right age range, a year and a half younger than Affleck and would bring a lot more people back to the theaters than Affleck would.

What seems strangest to me about the casting of Affleck as Bruce Wayne is that Affleck is known as a laid back, charismatic and self-deprecating guy who looks great in a tuxedo. He does things with a wink and generally seems to be having a good time, both on and off screen. Wayne is known as a dark, morose outsider who suffered through a childhood trauma that consumes him as an adult and drives his every move. The overlap between these competing ethos’ is minute to say the least. It’s certainly possible that Affleck will be able to nail the role of Wayne—it’s called ‘acting’ for a reason—but it seems very unusual to me that Warner Brothers would want to cast another laid back, charismatic and self-deprecating guy who looks great in a tuxedo in the role of Batman, given how well it worked the first time with George Clooney behind the cowl.

So will Affleck be good? No one can say. However the sheer volume of desperation surrounding this project and the numerous things that were pushed aside to arrive at this casting choice have set Man of Steel 2 down an interesting path where everyone is on pins and needles waiting for the next mistake to pounce on. It will be a stressful two years for Warner Brothers, that’s for sure.