Ben Affleck Praises New Batman Star Robert Pattinson, Explains He Lost His Passion

All eyes are on Robert Pattinson as the actor takes the mantle as Bruce Wayne for upcoming film The Batman, currently in production with director Matt Reeves. But there was a time a few years ago when Ben Affleck was going to produce, direct, write, and star in a Batman movie, though he eventually walked away from the project after the tumultuous production of Justice League with Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon. Now that Affleck is currently promoting his basketball drama The Way Back, he’s opening up about the future of the Caped Crusader and revealing some new details about his exit.

During an interview with Jake Hamilton, Affleck said this of Pattinson taking over the role: “I think Robert’s a great actor, he’s going to do great.”

When explaining his decision to abandon the project, Affleck revealed that he lost his passion for the DC Comics role.

“We had a script. I liked the script, I wrote it with Geoff Johns, who I have a lot of respect for,” Affleck said. “It just so happened that I had done a couple of those movies, and I kind of lost my passion for it. You know what I mean? I kind of lost my passion for telling those stories, I got interested in telling stories more like this, and it just seemed like very clear to me that if it’s not the most important thing in the world to you, you’re not going to make a very good movie. The movie deserves to be made by someone whose dying to do it and can’t wait, and that wasn’t me at the time, so I moved on.”

Affleck’s personal struggles over the last few years have been well document, including multiple relapses while battling alcoholism and a high profile divorce from Jennifer Garner. The actor previously spoke with The New York Times in a lengthy profile, intimating that he could have suffered another relapse had he committed to making a Batman movie at that point in time.

“I showed somebody The Batman script,” Affleck said. “They said, ‘I think the script is good. I also think you’ll drink yourself to death if you go through what you just went though again.”

Affleck can next be seen in The Way Back, premiering in theaters on March 6th.

The Batman is currently set to premiere in theaters on June 25, 2021.