Has Ben Affleck Already Passed On 'Justice League'?

Yesterday we got the first inkling of what Warner Bros. wants to do with Justice League: go big. (No surprise.) Their first choice for big would naturally be Christopher Nolan, who has expressed a distinct lack of interest in continuing with the superhero game. But WB has two other directors that, of late, it likes to introduce to big projects. One is Harry Potter director David Yates, and the other is Ben Affleck.

WB reportedly sent the Justice League script to Affleck before anyone else, and yesterday the conversation began in earnest about whether or not Affleck would be the right choice. I don't think anyone realistically expected the actor/director to take the gig, and there are already reports that he has passed.

Enter Deadline with their own Variety-busting "scoop," and the word that Affleck's reps are saying that he's definitely not doing the movie. There's the suggestion that he might take a meeting with WB on it, but that's it.

And that's the way it should be. Devin at Badass Digest might have put it best, when he said "Affleck hopefully knows he's in the Sidney Lumet business, not the James Cameron business." Affleck's value — his great value — right now is in making the middle-budget adult films that very few people can get made at a major studio right now. Losing that to Justice League would be a real blow.

It's neat to think that WB sees Affleck as a potential next Nolan, but I'd rather just see him continue to be Affleck; he's proven to be rather good at that when he's behind the camera.