Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I was decidedly mixed on BvS, but I think we can all agree that minus some deadly aggression issues Batfleck was pretty solid in design and action. There's a lot of movies in the DCCU that I'm hopeful for like Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman, but Affleck's standalone Batman movie that he's directing is at the top of my list.
So you can imagine how happy I was that the project came up on last week's last-minute Justice League set visit. Picture the scenario. Ben Affleck, in Batman costume minus the cowl standing just off set surrounded by about 30 bloggers as 15 feet away The Flash, Wonder Woman and Cyborg (also in costume) joke around in their crew chairs.
Pretty surreal.
Affleck was very upfront about where his standalone movie is at, his willingness to jump ship if he doesn't get the script where he wants it and, most importantly, his desire to take Batman back to his Detective roots and make it more of a noir-inspired tale.
Here's the exact transcript:
Question: Is there any desire to bring Batman back to his detective roots?
Ben Affleck: The world's greatest detective aspect of Batman is more present in this story (Justice League) than it was in the last one and it would probably be expanded upon further in the Batman movie that I direct. All great Batman stories are, at their heart, detective stories, almost noir movies in a way. It feels like The Maltese Falcon.
Question: Do you have a time frame of when you'd like to see your solo Batman movie in theaters?
Ben Affleck: I think they have a date for it, but honestly I don't know if I'd necessarily be able to make that date because I don't have a script that's ready yet. My timetable is that I'm not going to make a movie until there's a script that I think is good because I've been on the end of things when you make a movie and the script is not good yet and it doesn't pan out.
Question: Can I ask where you are in the scripting process? Is there a draft you're happy with or a story you're happy with and it's about fleshing it out further?
Ben Affleck: I have a script. We're still working on it and I'm not happy enough with it to actually go out there and make a Batman movie. I have the highest of standards (for a Batman movie). It would have to pass a very high bar for me, not just like “Yeah, that might be fun. Let's go bang this out.”
Considering how Warner Bros has elevated Affleck up the creative ladder I'd be surprised if they don't blink on their date. The feeling I got from Affleck was he wasn't whistling Dixie about not going forward with the movie unless it was where he wanted it storywise. Him being willing to walk away is huge and makes me super pumped if it actually moves forward, especially if he's not exaggerating that it's taking its inspirations from noir and will focus a little more on The World's Greatest Detective. We haven't seen that Batman on the big screen really.
Good news all around from this interview snippet, methinks.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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