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Ben Affleck Quits Directing ‘Batman’ After ‘Live By Night’ Flop

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 03:15 PST, Feb 6, 2017

Ben Affleck has quit his role as director of the upcoming solo Batman movie, according to Slash Film. While the 44-year-old actor-turned-director will still threaten enemies in his deep, gruff voice as Batman in the upcoming Warner Bros. film, he announced he will no longer direct the film.

While the news of Ben Affleck quitting The Batman came as a surprise and left his fan scratching their heads, even more surprising is the fact that Affleck brought Oscar-winning Argo writer Chris Terrio onboard to pen the script for the solo Batman film.

Apart from working on the Oscar-winning Argo together, Ben Affleck and Terrio have also worked together on 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and are currently working on Justice League, which stars Affleck and features Terrio’s script.

Terrio even reportedly finished a draft for the solo Batman movie shortly before Ben Affleck announced he wouldn’t direct the film, sparking rumors that this might not be a coincidence.

One can argue that Ben Affleck’s decision to quit The Batman could be explained by his disappointment in the project and inability to see a bright future for it. There are a lot of unanswered questions involving Affleck’s departure, especially considering that the Argo actor had reportedly put a significant amount of time and effort into the project.

Ben Affleck’s official reason for quitting the standalone Batman film as director was that he struggled to “do both jobs to the level they require.” Despite the fact that Argo was lauded and praised by movie critics and Affleck both directed and starred in it, he apparently can’t do the same with the solo Batman film for some reason.

However, many still believe the reason for Ben Affleck’s departure has something to do with the screenplay, which apparently even Oscar-winning Terrio failed to fix. Others also suggest that Affleck’s box-office flop Live by Night might have something to do with his departure, according to Vulture.

Live by Night, the box-office failure of which cost Warner Bros. a whopping $75 million in losses, was the first film Ben Affleck attempted to have full control over – he wrote, produced, directed, and starred in it.

In addition to its flaccid box-office figures, Live by Night was also met with a lack of enthusiasm from critics and audiences. In fact, it’s the first time Ben Affleck has done a disappointing job as a director. Just weeks later after the film’s release, he is no longer directing the solo Batman film.

While there’s no telling what the actual reason behind Ben Affleck’s departure was, many DC fans are now even more concerned about the future of the DC movie universe. After the disappointing Batman v Superman film and the not-as-awesome-as-expected Suicide Squad, DC fans were hoping the standalone Batman film and Justice League could save DC.

And now that Ben Affleck is no longer directing the standalone Batman film after publicly stressing in December that the script needed improvements, many DC fans fear they could see a yet another disappointing Warner Bros. film.

Ben Affleck has previously insisted that he was “not going to write and directing anything” that he didn’t think was “good enough to be made.”

“I’m definitely going to make sure I have something that is special — there’s not enough money in the world to make a mediocre version of Batman worth it.”

And while filmmakers say these things about the script to reassure fans that their movie is going to be really good (but in reality are not good at all), if the bad script was the reason for Ben Affleck announcing he would no longer direct The Batman, then the actor-turned-director apparently really meant it and he is sticking with his opinion.

[Featured Image by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images]

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