Normally I think I would be aiming such a question in the headline to the fans of the material, but this time I’m more interested in fans of the man. Variety reports Warner Bros. has approached Ben Affleck to direct their Justice League feature, which, much like The Avengers franchise, would be a superhero team-up, this one involving DC Comics characters such as Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and The Flash.
The studio got close to making the film with George Miller (Mad Max: Fury Road, Happy Feet) but that fell apart as they tried to rush it into production before the writers strike. This new iteration would apparently not hit theaters until some time around 2015, the same year it looks like The Avengers 2 would be hitting theaters and three years after Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy ended with The Dark Knight Rises.
So now we come to the question of Affleck whom has already given us Gone Baby Gone and The Town and will deliver the highly promising Argo in theaters next month. Does anyone really want Affleck to focus all his directorial attention on a superhero movie instead of something more original?
As Variety notes, Affleck has been considering his next project recently, which has at times included a new adaptation of Stephen King’s “The Stand” (meh) and Greg Berlanti’s long-gestating sci-fi drama Replay based on Ken Grimwood’s 1987 bestseller following a man who dies and gets the chance to relive his life over and over again, changing partners and professions each time. Personally, neither of those sound all that appealing to me, but they sound infinitely more appealing than the thought of Affleck wasting his time on a superhero franchise.
Should Affleck decide to take the reigns I’d like to assume he’d actually be a good choice. He’s a solid storyteller and he can certainly deliver some intensity. Names attached to the film when Miller was involved included Adam Brody as the Flash, Common as Green Lantern, Armie Hammer as Batman and Megan Gale as Wonder Woman. I can’t help but wonder how things would change this time around.
