Thomas Hoffmann
Ben Affleck didn’t mince words when recalling the trauma of the filming of Justice League. The experience was, quite simply, a piece of shit for the actor and filmmaker, who in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter detailed everything that went wrong with the DC feature film, which subsequently had its redemption at the hand of the Snyder Cut.
To some extent, it is not news that Justice League was plagued by problems. However, Ben Affleck’s words give a different connotation to the dramas surrounding the film. Not only because they magnified his personal problems -his alcoholism, for example-, but also because they led him to cut ties with superhero movies, even though he had more commitments in the pipeline linked to Batman.
Asked about the case of Justice Leaguethe actor did not mince words. “That was the worst experience I’ve ever seen in a business that is full of shitty experiences.”he explained. For Ben Affleck, the film was marked by a combination of catastrophic decisions and situations. From a myriad of production problems, to the death of Zack Snyder’s daughter, who walked away from the project and was replaced by Joss Whedon.
According to the actor, a seminar could be taught on everything not to do in filmmaking, using Justice League as an example. And he assured that the final result left him “the most monstrous taste in his mouth.”.
The trauma of The Justice Leaguein the words of Ben Affleck
Warner Bros.
The case of The Justice League is one that has left a deep mark on Ben Affleck. Not for nothing, the artist made it clear that he will not participate in DC movies again, not even if James Gunn asks him to. And the memories around the shooting of the film that was released in 2017 are far from happy:
“There was an idea that someone [Joss Whedon] would come in and say, ‘I’ll rescue them. We’ll do 60 days of shooting and I’ll write something from what they already have. I’ve got the secret.’ And it wasn’t the secret. That was hard. And I started drinking too much. I was back at the hotel in London, and that was it. [beber] Or throw myself out of a window. And I said, ‘This is not the life I want. My children are not here. I’m miserable.’ You want to go to work and find something interesting to hold on to, instead of just wearing a rubber suit and standing in front of a computer most of the time thinking that if this crap gets out, we’re finished. […]. ‘I don’t want to participate in this in any way. And I don’t want to waste any more of my life, of which I have a limited amount left,’ I thought.”
The curious thing about Justice League is that, as we said at the beginning, it had its redemption a handful of years later. This happened at the hand of the Snyder Cutthe director’s cut that was released in 2021 on HBO Max. That version not only presented important changes in production -especially in the special effects section-, but also plot improvements, cameos and an extended duration that required the filming of extra scenes. The final result achieved a very positive reception from both the public and the specialized press, and also had a curious effect on Ben Affleck’s filmography.
“One day [Zack Snyder] He says to me, ‘Do you want to come shoot in my backyard?’ ‘ And I was like, ‘Look, Zack, I think there are unions. We’d have to make a deal first,’ but I went and did it anyway. And now [el Snyder Cut] is my highest rated movie on IMDb.. Let them say what they want, it’s the highest-rated film of my career,” he explained.
In any case, the success of Zack Snyder’s Justice League. didn’t change Ben Affleck’s mind about the torturousness of shooting for DC.. Recall that, in addition to getting into the skin of Batman, the actor and filmmaker was scheduled to direct a film of the character. However, he opted out of that plan. “I’m out. I don’t want to do anything like this again. I’m not cut out for it,” he said.