Considering that the Justice League from 2017 was re-edited into the Zack Snyder’s Justice League version in 2021, one can sense, even without knowing the bitter behind-the-scenes details, that its production was stormy. There were differences between Warner Bros. and Snyder, who during production also endured the grief of the suicide of one of his daughters. Throughout this, the cast led by Ben Affleck alias Bruce Wayne / Batman took the hit. Promoting his latest directorial effort on Netflix, Animals, Affleck returned to that rough period, as a guest on the Happy Sad Confused podcast.
Ben Affleck regards Justice League as the low point of his career
Fresh off directing and starring in Animals on Netflix, Ben Affleck revisited a painful chapter of his career: the Batman / Bruce Wayne era in the now-defunct DC Extended Universe, during which he even contemplated directing a solo outing for the character. In truth, it was Justice League that left a mark, albeit a decidedly unpleasant one: “The truth is that the experience of Justice League was quite negative, for a lot of different reasons. Some related to my personal issues, others to the tragedy that occurred, and then I really saw how not to make a film, when the studio isn’t in harmony with the director. If you do it wrong. The film was doomed. […] A real shit, they pulled me from the project, then those reshoots we did – if you’re looking for the lowest point of my career, that was it. […] But when someone dies by suicide, that’s something that covers everything else. And the way, frankly, it was used as an excuse to… I simply thought it was one of the meanest moves I’ve ever seen. A total mess. Then the atmosphere surrounding it, the mood that pervaded it, not that it entirely involved me, but I heard the experiences of others, Ray and Gal. I thought: it couldn’t be more disgusting.”/>
One has to wonder whether someone in the upper echelons of Warner Bros. at the time didn’t have a guilty conscience, to have later allowed Snyder, years afterward, to re-cut the film altered by Joss Whedon into his true Zack Snyder’s Justice League (for which Affleck also agreed to participate in some additional takes).
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