Ben Affleck Talks About JUSTICE LEAGUE and Says Batman Will Be More Traditional and Heroic
I think we all knew we would see a lighter side of Batman in Justice League, especially after the backlash of the darkness that he portrayed in Batman v Superman. I might be one of the few that was actually ok with the darkness of Batman in that film. Regardless, I think it will be fun to see a lighter side to him.
Ben Affleck recently talked to Entertainment Weekly about the upcoming Justice League film and opened up a bit more about how Batman is being handled this time around. He explains that we'll see a more traditional and heroic Batman this time around.
“’BvS’ departed a little bit from the traditional Batman. He started out with all this rage directed at Superman, because of his coworkers who had died in the fight Superman had with Zod. He was holding on to a lot of anger, in a little bit of an irrational way, whereas this is a much more traditional Batman. He’s heroic. He does things in his own way, but he wants to save people, help people. This is more in keeping with the canon of how Batman’s usually been portrayed, and how he’s portrayed vis a vis the Justice League in the comics. This is more the Batman you would find if you opened up your average Batman comic book. Not that it’s average.”
We can see this change in the brief clips from the trailers that feature the Caped Crusader. The studio is really trying to show his lighter tone with some very dry Batman humor. Affleck goes on to talks about the story and bringing together the team of superheroes to form the Justice League.
“I think it’s a really cool story. Actually, it’s sort of a story about multilateralism. It’s not a bad theme to have! He’s put in this position of having to reach out, find other people, convincing them to do something. Part of the drama of the movie is the question of whether or not the team is going to come together. It’s very different from the tenor of the last movie.”
I'm looking forward to Justice League. I think we might actually see some great things from it thanks to director Zack Snyder's cool visual style and Joss Whedon's skills with character development. I just hope the overall story itself turns out solid.
There's a lot of talk revolving around Affleck right now and if he will return to the role of Bruce Wayne for Matt Reeves' The Batman. Ben's brother Casey recently said that Ben wasn't going to do that movie. But Ben made it very clear at Comic-Con that he would be a part of it, so we'll just have to wait and see how this "will he or won't he" talk plays out. I think he'll end up doing it.
Regardless of that, what do you think about what Affleck had to say about bringing a more traditional comic book version of Batman to the big screen in Justice League?