Entertainment Weekly spoke to Ben Affleck about Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. It’s a long interview, and there’s a lot to talk about, like Affleck’s approach to creating a Batman who is older, getting weary, and haunted by his rage. Affleck was tasked by Entertainment Weekly to explain what sets his Batman apart from the others (besides the huge back tattoo, of course).
“What I wanted was to create a Batman that was sort of at the end of his rope physically and psychologically and emotionally, a guy who was beaten down by the world, a guy who was a little bit more of a slugger, who has more gray in his hair, and who was questioning whether the whole journey that he lived as Batman was in fact even worth it, given that he was not superhero, but now had to face a super-being, which none of the other Batmans had to confront in the movie world. It’s an interesting thing to combine, because in the Nolan Batmans, which are the defining Batmans — so magnificent — there are no other superheroes. It’s just this guy. He never has to reconcile who he is with this idea that there are all these other people who can do these supernatural things. Having to confront that and having to deal with that is my contribution to the character.”
Finding out there are superbeings in the world wasn’t all bad. Affleck says meeting Wonder Woman “inspires” Batman to look for more superheroes. Perhaps he could form some sort of club. Or a league, even. They could have meetings. Exchange cookie recipes. Look at each other’s pinboards.
Affleck also confirmed that Warner is developing the rumored standalone Batman movie, but nothing’s official yet. He also spoke a bit on Batman’s motivation for fighting Superman: The destruction of Metropolis and countless deaths in Man of Steel. “There’s an enormous amount of fear and resentment and suffering that would engender. And we know what that is, we know what that’s like now.”
But it isn’t just the tragedy in Metropolis that raises Batman’s hackles. Some of his anger towards Superman speaks to his many deep-seated issues.
“He’s projecting in some ways his own sense of failure, his own sense of disillusionment, his own cynicism onto Superman, having at one point been certainly much more idealistic about what he was doing. He’s also always been kind of a dark guy.”
Kind of a dark guy, huh? It’s not too late to give him a new theme song…
(Via Entertainment Weekly)