Ben Affleck calls filming Justice League "awful" and "the worst experience"

(Image credit: Warner Bros.)

Ben Affleck has spoken out about his experience filming Justice League.

The actor played Batman in the movie, which had a particularly troubled production. Director Zack Snyder stepped away from the film after the death of his daughter, and The Avengers helmer Joss Whedon then oversaw reshoots that drastically changed the tone and plot of the movie.

"It was really Justice League that was the nadir for me," Affleck told the Los Angeles Times. "That was a bad experience because of a confluence of things: my own life, my divorce, being away too much, the competing agendas and then Zack's personal tragedy and the reshooting."

He continued: "It just was the worst experience. It was awful. It was everything that I didn't like about this. That became the moment where I said, 'I'm not doing this anymore.' It's not even about, like, Justice League was so bad. Because it could have been anything."

Snyder’s vision for the film was brought to screen in Zack Snyder's Justice League, which was released in March 2021. Despite a vocal fan campaign to #RestoreTheSnyderVerse, it seems the Snyder Cut is the end of the road for that corner of the DCEU.

Affleck will reprise his role as Batman in The Flash, the DC Comics movie focused on Ezra Miller's titular scarlet speedster. It seems this will be the last time we see Affleck in the cape and cowl, though, as Michael Keaton will play the vigilante in the upcoming Batgirl movie (and appear in The Flash).

Robert Pattinson is also stepping into the character's shoes in The Batman, which so far is unconnected to the wider DC movie universe. Initially, Affleck was set to play the vigilante in that film, too, and he explained why he walked away: "I looked at it and thought, 'I'm not going to be happy doing this. The person who does this should love it.' You're supposed to always want these things, and I probably would have loved doing it at 32 or something. But it was the point where I started to realize it's not worth it. It's just a wonderful benefit of reorienting and recalibrating your priorities that once it started being more about the experience, I felt more at ease."

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I'm the Deputy Entertainment Editor here at GamesRadar+, covering all things film and TV for the site's Total Film and SFX sections. I previously worked on the Disney magazines team at Immediate Media, and also wrote on the CBeebies, MEGA!, and Star Wars Galaxy titles after graduating with a BA in English.