‘Justice League’ — Ben Affleck Is Executive Producer


Ben Affleck isn’t just Batman/Bruce Wayne in The Justice League, Part One, he’s also an executive producer. Affleck was promoted seemingly in support of director Zack Snyder, according to Deadline, and will be working behind the scenes with Snyder and the film’s screenwriter, Chris Terrio.

Terrio and Affleck already have a pretty solid working relationship, since Terrio wrote Ben’s 2012 film Argo, which earned Chris an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice‘s screenplay was also written by Terrio, and apparently Mr. Bruce Wayne himself was behind the scenes working with Terrio on the script — presumably beefing up his Batman role.

Warner Bros. certainly has an advantage with Ben Affleck in their DC Extended Universe and keeping him close to the production in this way is a smart move for the studio right now. It seems like there are rumors of friction within the WB camp floating around — whether that be Flash director Seth Grahame-Smith dropping out — though all of these rumors could be easily dismissed as just that.

'Justice League' - Ben Affleck Is Executive Producer
Affleck sitting with some DC puppies on ‘ Jimmy Fallon’. [Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for NBC]
Ben Affleck executive producing Justice League — at this point it’s safe to assume he will be an EP on both Part One and Part Two — is definitely a plus for WB. Batman v Superman doesn’t look as if it will be crossing over $1 billion at the worldwide box office, not to mention its large collection of harsh criticism, which Affleck didn’t take very well, apparently. Devin Faraci said, via Birth.Movies.Death, that Affleck was “humiliated.”

“My sources have told me 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.”

It’s obvious that the execs at Warner Bros. are trying as hard as they can to improve on their DCEU and make sure that the Justice League movie does not receive the same critical reaction Dawn of Justice received. In the midst of all this, Captain America: Civil War is getting nothing but praise from both fans and critics, which isn’t making the whole situation any easier on WB.

Ben Affleck will also be co-writing and directing a solo Batman feature for the studio, which does not seem to have an official release date at the moment. It was also recently announced that both Affleck and co-writer Geoff Johns will have complete creative control over the solo Batman flick — which is also a very smart move. Would Ben be up for being the Kevin Feige for Warner Bros.? That seems highly unlikely, but it certainly seems like WB does not have their own Feige — one person who knows these comic book characters inside and out and knows how to maintain a massive cinematic universe. This would be a great time to bring in Bruce Timm.

'Justice League' - Ben Affleck Is Executive Producer
[Image via DC Comics]
WB’s Justice League is going to be more lighthearted than Batman v Superman and more of a “crowd-pleasing” film, according to some reports. Jon Berg and Time-Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes are going to be paying much closer attention to the DCEU and all of the interweaving stories and characters.

The Justice League, Part One, starring Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa and Ray Fisher, has a release date for November 17, 2017.

[Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images]

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