He'll Be A Wicked Batman

As soon Marvel's "The Avengers" topped $1 billion in earnings I knew it was only going to be a matter of time before DC got their heads out of their asses and agreed to make a movie featuring both Superman and Batman. After all, the Avengers are a nice group of superheroes but they are nothing compared to Batman and Superman, the Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson of the comic book world. So, the idea of having them in one movie has always been a pipe dream of anyone who has ever bought a graphic novel in their life. Well, recently it was announced that the dream pairing would finally be coming to a theater near you in just a couple of years during the summer of 2015. The only question now was who would play Batman. You see, while Superman was recently rebooted with Henry Cavill playing the Man of Steel and produced a solid box-office effort, Christian Bale has said he will no longer play the Caped Crusader. At first there were rumors he was offered upwards of $50 million to play the part one more time, which is insane to me. This movie is guaranteed to make hundreds of millions of dollars, regardless of who are in the starring roles. In my opinion they could have plucked another mildly obscure actor, paid him a tenth of what they would have given Bale and spent that money on script writers. I guess that makes yesterday's announcement that Ben Affleck would be the next Batman all the more surprising.

This is not Affleck's first foray into the world of superheroes, because he was once in a very bad version of "DareDevil." With that fresh on comic enthusiast minds, the backlash against the casting was as expected as it was quick. Almost immediately a Twitter topic of people who would make a better Batman than Ben Affleck started trending while dozens of unoriginal people made the same joke about casting Matt Damon as Robin. And even though I am supposed to be the on the side of Affleck because he is a Boston boy, I can see why they would be hesitant. In the last couple of years Affleck has started carving out a very solid career as one of the better directors in Hollywood and his Golden Globe win for "Argo" combined with the outrage that he wasn't even nominated for an Oscar was proof of that. Most observers seem generally pleased with the majority of the decisions he makes for his movie, with one major qualm - his reoccurring decision to cast himself as the lead. For as much as he has grown as a director, the acting side of Ben Affleck continues to lag behind. In fact, many people thought he would have been an inspired choice to direct this Superman/Batman movie but the thought of him trying to play Bruce Wayne leaves them cold and their concerns could be warranted. If you look at his IMDB page at the movies the movies in which he was asked to do nothing but act has not exactly been a run of hits.

If it is any consolation to Affleck there was literally no one the studio could have named that the fans would have seen as a good choice. The hardcore comic book community may be small but when it comes to the world of social media they are loud and opinionated. On top of that they have been thinking about this movie for years and I can guarantee they never saw Ben Affleck in the role. And while I can see why they would feel slightly betrayed because it is like following a sports team and finally realizing that they don't care what you think they should be doing no matter how loyal you may have been to them, at the same time I do think they are being too quick to condemn Affleck here. I always like to take a wait-and-see approach to movies because there have been plenty of examples of casting which seemed weird at the time and produced amazing result. If you think about it there is actually no better example of this than the Batman character itself. Michael Keaton was known as a quirky, comedic actor the first time he put on the cape and everyone thought Tim Burton was insane for picking him. Now he is seen as the best Batman ever. Additionally, to all the people calling out that the studios should pay Bale whatever he wants, I would challenge you to show me the movie in his past which told you he would make a fine superhero some day because if you go back and look at what people thought of that choice when it was made they certainly didn't see it working out as well as it did.

That really is the crux of the matter - people are programmed to automatically second guess every decision Hollywood makes. And yes, I know Hollywood makes a ton of really bad decisions when it comes to movies (ironically the bigger the budget the worse the decision seem to be) but every now and again they are capable of reminding us that they do this for a living and are allowed to spend all this money to make movies for a reason. The problem is that we are hardwired to remember the really awful casting choices and forget the ones which just worked out perfectly. (Staying in the superhero genre, Robert Downey Jr was a really risky choice to be Iron Man and now you can't imagine that character being played by anyone else.) Affleck may be a curious choice but people also need to remember that superhero movies are most action sequences and special effects, so it is not like he is being asked to perform Shakespeare. That is why ultimately the hard truth is it doesn't really matter which actor they hire to play Batman as long as the script is good. People love to argue over casting in movies but the greatest actors in the world can't do a damn thing with a terrible script and a well-written story can cover up a lot of acting flaws, so the most important hire is the writer and yet that mostly gets overlooked. All I know is I don't care who plays which character as long as I don't have to sit through another origin story reboot.