Ben Affleck is the new Batman

That’s not a typo. Ben Affleck will play Batman in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel sequel. The first question on a lot of people’s minds: “Uh… did you not see Daredevil?”

Affleck played the titular hero in 2003’s Daredevil and it wasn’t super well-received. It has a 45% on Rotten Tomatoes and made $179 million worldwide. Affleck himself actually seemed disappointed in the film as well stating that he’d never again play a superhero.

Well, unless it’s Batman, of course.

I think Affleck could be a very good choice as long as he takes it as seriously as he does when he’s behind the camera. The failure of Daredevil does not rest solely on his shoulders. That film had a bad script, bad direction and was during a time in Affleck’s career when he seemed to be kind of phoning a lot of his performances in. His more recent efforts in The Town and Argo have shown that he’s back to giving it his all and cares about what he’s doing.

This could also be considered his third time playing a superhero as he portrayed George Reeves, television’s Superman in the 1950’s, in the film Hollywoodland. His performance in that film is actually what started bringing Affleck out of his slump of box office failures and on to the path of directing a Best Picture winner.

I’m definitely interested to see what Affleck brings to the role of Batman/Bruce Wayne. I think he has the potential to make it great. Hopefully we won’t get another George Clooney ala Batman & Robin.

Also, I’m assuming he ran the idea of playing Batman by his long time friend and collaborator Kevin Smith, who is a self-proclaimed huge Batman fan (he even has a podcast called “Fatman on Batman”). I wish I could have been there for that conversation. Affleck: “They want me to play Batman.” Smith: “You said ‘yes’, right???”

You want *me* to play Batman?

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