5 People Who Should Have Played Batman Instead of Ben Affleck

Ethan Gach

I write about comics, video games and American politics. I fear death above all things. Just below that is waking up in the morning to go to work. You can follow me on Twitter at @ethangach or at my blog, gamingvulture.tumblr.com. And though my opinions aren’t for hire, my virtue is.

Related Post Roulette

100 Responses

  1. Will Truman says:

    Cavaziel is to old for the part, I think. I vote for #5. (But then again, Affleck doesn’t bother me.)Report

  2. Chris says:

    I vote Denzel Washington, so Batman can have that walk.Report

  3. I vote for Stringer Bell.Report

    • I disagree. Not that I don’t think he could play the part, but if we’re going to cross the racial lines with the character, it ought to be in a Batman movie and not a Superman-Batman movie.Report

      • Barry in reply to Will Truman says:

        Oh, yeah!

        And I love the way that Ethan put it – Idris can play it smooth (Bruce Wayne) and switch even more smoothly to a smooth brutality.

        (let me get my thesaurus – I think I need more synonyms).Report

    • Kazzy in reply to Mark Thompson says:

      I read an interesting piece by a writer recently that basically said, “Stop suggesting Idris Elba for every part ever.”

      Her point was not that he wasn’t a phenomenal actor who could have played all these parts… but that there were OTHER super talented black actors and making him the go to for all cross-racial groundbreaking was itself some weird form of “token black man”. I’m not sure I totally bought it, but it was an interesting perspective. I’ll see if I can dig it up.

      WIth that in mind, I recommend Michael B. Jordan.

      Because learning that Batman was really Michael Jordan the whole time? Awesome.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Kazzy says:

        You know what’s worse than the suggestion of Idris Elba for every part ever?

        The suggestion of Ben Affleck for any given part.Report

      • Kazzy in reply to Kazzy says:

        Affleck can direct. Is that a fair compromise?

        As one of the bigger comic book guys here, @jaybird , do you think it is all that important who is behind the mask? The actor playing Batman has always struck me as less important than most other pieces of the films. Bale was somewhat wasted… he spent half the movie hiding his face and talking in a dry, flat, gravelly voice. In the Nolan films, it was the writing, the directing, the visuals, and the other actors who all got the most accolades and really seemed to make those movies what they were.

        Other super heroes (e.g., Iron Man/Tony Stark) seem more dependent upon the actor.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Kazzy says:

        The best Batmen are the ones who made the best Bruce Wayne. Christian Bale was a… well… he grew into Bruce Wayne, let’s say. He wasn’t *BAD* in the last movie. He was pretty awful in the first one, though.

        (Now, Michael Keaton made for a dang fine Bruce Wayne.)

        As you say, the job of Batman is to talk in a gravelly voice and, if he’s lucky, he’s got good lines. (“I don’t know! I swear to God!” “SWEAR TO ME!”)

        The question for me is not how good of a Batman will Ben Affleck make, but how good of a Bruce Wayne will he make? And it seems to me that he’ll make a poor one (indeed, I rather expect him to sit around in his full outfit with the cowl pulled off for half of his scenes). For the price, you could have gotten someone a lot cheaper and spent more on the script (which, inevitably, will be awful).Report

      • Kazzy in reply to Kazzy says:

        How would you describe the character or Bruce Wayne? What should we looking for in an actor?

        It surprises me that Bale did as poorly as you say, since he is typically a phenomenal character actor.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Kazzy says:

        The best Bruce Wayne is someone who, after an interview with the guy, is someone who will make you say “I kinda had a hunch that Bruce Wayne might be The Batman but that guy couldn’t do the word jumble. He might be able to win at beer pong. No freakin’ way could he do the stuff that Batman does. I feel dumber just thinking that I suspected him of being Batman.”Report

      • Will Truman in reply to Kazzy says:

        Jaybird, Given that this is a Superman-Batman movie, I don’t know that Bruce Wayne will be as important to this film as he would be to a straight-up Batman movie.

        Kazzy, My theory is that they’re giving him this part so that he pretty much has to direct the Justice League movie.Report

      • kenB in reply to Kazzy says:

        So, sorta like the Scarlet Pimpernel.Report

      • Kim in reply to Kazzy says:

        Kazzy,
        The Nolan pics weren’t about Batman. Batman played straight man, but more importantly he played foil and narrator.

        Batman, in my experience, seems to be a kinda quiet guy. That’s why folks
        are emphasizing guys with physical acting talent (the guy playing the supervillain in the last batman was excellent). Actually, why not Tom Hardy? He doesn’t have the jaw, or anything, but he knows how to act, and act well behind a mask. He’d bring a more … everyman… feeling to Bruce Wayne.

        On that note, I like Michael Dorn.He’s always more comfortable behind a mask — and bringing that to Bruce Wayne might be a really interesting take. You’d have to emphasize the ultimate emptiness of all the riches that surround him… Extra spicy bonus points if you throw in a decent ability to see the animal inside everyone (shades of The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, Her Lover).Report

      • Ethan Gach in reply to Kazzy says:

        Kim, that’s a great point about physicality.

        In fact, I think that get’s at the issue pretty concisely–when I think Bruce Wayne and Batman I want someone who has a compelling physical presence and can relay ridiculously comic book archetypes through non-ridiculous action and movement.

        I think why I have so little faith in Affleck is that, like Clooney, he acts from the head and the hands, and that style doesn’t have the self-possession and weight that I think the character demands.Report

      • ScarletNumber in reply to Kazzy says:

        Elba was terrible in The Office but I don’t know if that was his fault or the writers’.Report

      • Kazzy in reply to Kazzy says:

        Okay, so people keep talking about this as a Superman-Batman movie, which I assume means both Superman and Batman appear in it.

        But… what does that really mean? Do they even operate in the same universe? What does Batman bring to the table that Superman could possibly need?

        Oh yea, and here is a kick full of sand in all your faces.Report

      • Mlke Schilling in reply to Kazzy says:

        Elba was less terrible than Will Ferrell.Report

      • Will Truman in reply to Kazzy says:

        Which is every bit the accomplishment as being taller than Danny DeVito.Report

      • Mike Schilling in reply to Kazzy says:

        Fair enough. But given that two talented actors were awful, and that one of the worst things about Ferrell’s arc was that he had a completely different personality in each of his episodes, I blame the writers.Report

      • ScarletNumber in reply to Kazzy says:

        I concede that Deangelo Vickers was worse than Charles Miner. As for fault, I will leave that to the philosophers.Report

  4. j r says:

    I have no opinion about Batman, but I would love to see Idris Elba as the next James Bond.Report

    • StevetheCat in reply to j r says:

      Craig is under contract for two more movies.
      Looking at their production history, Elba will be close to 50 by the time they choose a new Bond.
      Not going to happen.Report

    • Barry in reply to j r says:

      No. If he gets into a tux and starts drinking martinis, we’ll have lost all of the women in the world. We’ll be wretched bachelors wandering the wasteland.Report

  5. Burt Likko says:

    I agree with Jon Hamm. He’s got the square jaw and the physical stature that projects physical prowess; those are the things that would stand out through the Batman suit.

    Idris Elba is da man, to be sure. And Batman could certainly be black. But the issue is the same with Jim Caviezel: he’d have to portray a superhero facing the end of his career rather than its beginning.Report

    • StevetheCat in reply to Burt Likko says:

      Jon Hamm is older then Ben Affleck who is older than Idris Elba.
      Jim Caviezel, older then the rest, but not by much.
      Searching pictures, Affleck has a hell of a lot gym time in his future to even approach Bale.Report

    • Mike Schilling in reply to Burt Likko says:

      Hamm has already mastered the superhero (Don Draper) vs. secret identity (Dick Whitman) bit; in fact, I wouldn’t be shocked if his more boyish persona was named after Dick Grayson. Batman couldn’t help but be a letdown after six brilliant seasons of Alcoholic Can’t Keep It In His Pants Man.Report

  6. Jaybird says:

    “Ben Affleck is actually my second choice for who would play Batman.”
    “Who’s your first?”
    “Everyone else is tied.”Report

  7. Sidd says:

    Channing Tatum could have been the best for role of batman, guys how about Channing Tatum?Report

  8. j r says:

    I have to admit that I see this whole internet Ben Affleck outrage as basically just another case of faux-geek pedantry by the internet hivemind. I’m not anti-superhero movie, but they are just dudes in tights with daddy issues acting out drawings. What’s more, the best way to ruin any work of art is to start crowd-sourcing it.

    What am I missing? Can someone tell me why I’m wrong?Report

    • Jaybird in reply to j r says:

      they are just dudes in tights with daddy issues acting out drawings

      I kinda see them as reflections of modern morality. Not necessarily when it comes to what they are doing, but *WHY* they are doing it. We see the origins of the various superheroes warp and change and, when done right, we don’t even notice.

      Originally, Spiderman was bitten by a radioactive spider.
      Today? Spiderman was bitten by a genetically engineered spider.

      Oh, yeah. Of course he was.

      Behind that, we deal with issues such as Spiderman’s “With great power comes great responsibility”, Batman’s “Criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot…”, and the Silver Surfer’s “Paradise unearned is but a land of shadows.” We see superheroes ebb and flow, we see some become *REALLY* popular for a decade and then fall away…

      In the same vein as how television shows featuring procedurals for the police/prosecution were popular, then were replaced by procedurals for defense lawyers (inevitably defending innocent people), then back to the police/prosecution.

      They’re part of the pulse of how we feel about such things as crime, justice, revenge, and the whole process in general. There’s stuff there to be mined in the same way that we can look at the stories of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. We can watch our attitudes evolve in the stories from the first funny books to today.Report

    • StevetheCat in reply to j r says:

      “but they are just dudes in tights with daddy issues acting out drawings”
      Who is Brandon Routh?
      I have not even seen Man of Steel because of that debacle and I should be within their target audience.
      Apparently it was good enough to warrant a sequel but I will wait to see it on HBO.
      Maybe it already came out on cable and I missed it – not loosing any sleep.

      Affleck might be great Batman, I just think back to his performances and try to place him as Batman and the only thing that comes to my mind is “stilted.”Report

    • Pyre in reply to j r says:

      Greek Mythology, Shakespeare, and Star Wars can also be described as dudes in tights with daddy issues acting out.

      On the surface, this is not an inaccurate representation.Report

      • Mike Schilling in reply to Pyre says:

        Not a dime’s worth of difference between

        O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
        And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
        My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
        And I must pause till it come back to me.

        and

        I’ve got a bad feeling about this..Report

      • Pyre in reply to Pyre says:

        Nope. On the surface, there is not a dime’s worth of difference between:

        And as for this marriage with your mother—
        have no fear. Many a man before you,
        in his dreams, has shared his mother’s bed.
        Take such things for shadows, nothing at all—
        Live, Oedipus, as if there’s no tomorrow!

        and

        What the $&%*, Ben? You couldn’t have told me she was my sister BEFORE Empire Strikes Back?
        You’re from Tatooine which is like the Georgia of planets. I figured that you’d be cool with it.Report

    • j r in reply to j r says:

      It’s not so much the fascination with the superhero genre that I don’t get.

      It’s all the geek pedantry surrounding that I find strange. It is the critiquing of casting decisions and arguing over script choices and debating the metaphysics of the fictional universe, that’s what I don’t get. I sort of understand that it adds to the experience for lots of people, but I just can’t seem to figure out why.Report

      • morat20 in reply to j r says:

        Because people have stories and characters they really like, and when those are moved to a new medium, they don’t want it screwed up. They don’t want these beloved characters, or moving (to them) stories destroyed in the process.

        It’s not a geek thing — it’s a human thing.

        I still get a little stab-happy over the truly horrifying tragedy that was The Dark Is Rising movie. It was a stellar book, a Newberry award winner! And the movie was….some godawful piece of crap that shared nothing but a title and a few names.

        *shudder*Report

      • Glyph in reply to j r says:

        I don’t get sports either. It’s not so much the sports themselves, it is the critiquing of draft decisions and arguing over play choices and debating the metaphysics of a game in which a man hits a ball with a stick, that’s what I don’t get. I sort of understand that it adds to the experience for lots of people, but I just can’t seem to figure out why.Report

      • j r in reply to j r says:

        A little, but… not really. It is pretty plain to see that the world of geek things has a little more pedantic behavior than plenty of other worlds. And this isn’t so much a criticism as it is an actual question. Is there something to be said for this sort of involvement? Does it add an extra layer of appreciation? Or is it just an expression of a certain type of personality that I will mostly likely never understand?

        Here’s a little bit of criticism. The age of internet connectivity has allowed this sort of thing to really spread and go into hyper drive. There are lots of folks I observe complaining about Batman and Star Trek and Star Wars that I just can’t imagine that they really care that much. It’s just a way to join the internet chorus. It’s as if the internet is turning everyone into the Simpson’s comic book store guy.Report

      • j r in reply to j r says:

        Glyph,

        OK, that I get. That’s actually a very helpful comment to me. I don’t immediately make the sports connection because sports just seems more real, but I suppose that’s partly an artificial distinction and a function of my own subjective taste.Report

      • morat20 in reply to j r says:

        Those people would have, before, griped about it at the Water cooler (so to speak). Now it’s in text and doesn’t go away.

        I mean this post? It’s the equivalent of finding a bunch of coworkers at the coffee maker and saying “Ben Affleck as Batman? Don’t see it” and having half a dozen people weigh in, then go back to work.Report

      • Glyph in reply to j r says:

        @j-r – I was obviously teasing (well, I really DON’T get sports, that part is actually true) but after I hit “post” I got worried that sounded jerky, and I didn’t mean it to. Thanks for understanding where I was going with it, I didn’t mean it to seem like I was giving you a hard time.

        I spend a lot of time geeking out about records, and some people find that weird. But to me, bands or labels are roughly analogous to”teams”, and musicians to “players” etc., etc.

        It’s all the same sort of tribal bickering-and-bonding behaviors at root, IMO.Report

      • Pyre in reply to j r says:

        “There are lots of folks I observe complaining about Batman and Star Trek and Star Wars that I just can’t imagine that they really care that much. It’s just a way to join the internet chorus. ”

        Why not? All three of these properties have been around for decades and have generated hundreds of billions worth of merchanise world-wide, spawning all sorts of knock-offs. Why is it impossible to believe that so many people are into all this stuff?

        Before the internet, a lot of these fans were isolated from each other. You couldn’t really talk about it at school for fear of being laughed at, ostracized, and possibly curb-stomped. The internet changed that. First, it allowed like-minded people to connect to discuss their interests. Then they could share that with other non-like-minded people and get them to understand their interests. Understanding then led to acceptance and open discussion.

        And this is turning into a big metaphor for homosexuality which, oddly enough, also followed a very similar path down to even having the same complaints recently about “everyone joining the chorus”.

        “Or is it just an expression of a certain type of personality that I will mostly likely never understand?”

        There is no one set personality. Some comic geeks can say “Man, I’m glad there’s a new Man of Steel. Yeah, Henry Cavill is different from Christopher Reeves, George Reeves, or the shitty one that shall not be named but it’s all good.” Others can say “SUPERMAN DOESN’T KILL, MAN!!!! AND WHAT THE HELL WITH THIS “S means hope” CRAP?!? THAT ISN’T IN THE COMICS! WORST MOVIE EVER!!!”

        Chances are very good that, at some point in your life, you’ve done this too. You’ve probably been excitedly talking to someone about one of your passions and they’ve just smiled and nodded without giving a crap. The only difference is that now, people are able to talk to everyone about their passion with varying levels of interest. On my G+, I had one person who was passionate about brewing his own beer. I don’t give a crap. Another is big into ham radio. Smiling and nodding over here.

        Some of it may be echo chamber but most of it is people having a forum to express themselves. Such is what happens when you give everyone a voice.Report

  9. Jesse Ewiak says:

    I’m sure all this hand wringing over how terrible Ben Affleck will be as Batman will be as horrible a choice as the Internet thought Health Ledger would be as The Joker.Report

  10. Steve says:

    I actually had this conversation last night. My vote was for a more interesting pair of actors. I want to see Jean Reno as the next Batman and maybe Michael C. Hall as the Joker. Hall does amazing psychopaths when well written. I bet they’d do well in those roles. Jean Reno doesn’t quite have the facial structure, but my vote stands.Report

  11. Pyre says:

    1) It can’t be Idris Elba because, like it or not, you have to take in account comic book fans. Currently, Batwing is the worst-selling Batman comic and one of DC’s worst selling comics which is only kept afloat because, after Poo52 rebooted the universe (otherwise known as “The Great Whitening”), DC is desperate to keep their two titles (other being Katana) that don’t have a white superhero afloat.

    I like Idris Elba but Batwing is not who you want to invoke right now when rebooting movie Batman.

    2) From my G+:

    I discussed this with Dman back when it was first announced (thusly my post) and there are really two things to consider with this.

    1) Supposedly, Ben Affleck has been hard at work since the days of Armageddon/Daredevil revamping his “BenAffleckishness” (as MST3K put it). I figure that, if Leonardo DiCaprio can go from “Smarmy pretty boy who craps up every movie he’s in” to “serious dramatic actor”, I figure Ben Affleck can make the shot.

    2) As I’ve said before, Batman (and Joker) actors have to accurately portray their time period and set pieces. We have been fortunate to get actors such as Adam West, Michael Keaton, and Christian Bale (On the Joker side: Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, and Heath Ledger) who understood that.

    But the Christian Bale/Christopher Nolan Batman would be an absolute shit match for Justice League. He would be the Tower of Babel/OMAC Batman and that just won’t work for Justice League. Justice League is already badly hampered by it’s timetable. Using Bale’s gravelly-voiced Batman would kneecap the movie right out of the gate.

    I like the Dark Knight trilogy but, for Justice League to work, we have to have a Batman who would believably join a group and not be the team jackass that Batman often is in the comics.

    Can a supposedly reformed Ben Affleck do it? *Shrug* Maybe. We’ll see. If Robert Downey Jr. could go from drug-addled circling-the-drain actor to the A-lister that he currently is, I’m willing to say Ben Affleck has, at least, a chance of pulling off Batman.

    Honestly, at this point, I’m more worried about the new Batman debuting in a Man of Steel movie than Ben Affleck doing it.?

    One last thing:

    Heath Ledger was originally considered to be a pretty-boy actor whose only notable achievement was playing a gay cowboy (sans pudding) when he was tapped to play the Joker. Look how that turned out.Report

    • Pyre in reply to Pyre says:

      Also, I don’t want Karl Urban to play it because, dammit, there needs to be a Dredd sequel.Report

    • Will Truman in reply to Pyre says:

      Great comment, Pyre.

      Out of curiosity, pre-reboot, did DC have a lot of not-white heroes? I stopped collecting several years ago, but Blue Beetle is the only minority headline character that came after I quit. That I am aware of. Had they been doing more?

      I was among those who thought Heath Ledger was a terrible pick as the Joker. Oops. A lot of people thought it, which I actually think says as much about male cattiness as it does about the actors in particular. I am old enough to remember when nobody thought Brad Pitt was anything but flowing blond hair and a good set of pecs.

      I think it’s too soon to do another straight Batman movie reboot. So, folding it into Superman is probably the way to go. He is familiar enough that I don’t think we need another formal introduction.

      And absolutely right that the Bale Batman wouldn’t have worked here.Report

      • Alan Scott in reply to Will Truman says:

        Will, do yourself a favor and track down the John Rogers blue beetle run. It’s amazingly good.

        I actually went out of my way to pick up the first issue of batwing, and several other black-helmed new 52 books. I didn’t come back for issue two. It’s not any racism on the part of the fans that’s sinking those–It’s the fact that like 90% of the new 52 stuff, the books just suck.Report

      • Mike Schilling in reply to Will Truman says:

        Is that Blue Beetle any relationship to the one that was the inspiration for Nite Owl?Report

      • Mike, Nite Owl was based on Ted Kord, who was Jaime Reyes’ predecessor.

        Alan, I have a lot of difficulty accepting any Blue Beetle but Ted Kord. Though I like Jaime in the Brave & Bold TV show, it’s just not the same. But I’ll keep my eyes peeled.Report

      • Alan Scott in reply to Will Truman says:

        Will, don’t hold DC’s fishup against the new guy. Among those least happy with Kord’s death: the guys who created Reyes. Giffen is the guy who wrote the Justice League books that featured Kord’s Blue Beetle. And John Rogers’s rant about how killing Kord was a terrible mistake is one of the things that made Giffen choose him as a collaborator.

        As far as The Brave and the Bold, I was actually not a huge fan of that version of the character. Will Friedle is just too white to play Jaime. The version we see in Young Justice (played by Eric Lopez) is really cool though.Report

  12. Erik says:

    A few years ago this would have bothered me, but after Affleck started directing my faith in him has been restored. I think he’ll be fine.Report

  13. Mike Dwyer says:

    I think Affleck is a poor choice but I think he’s a great actor when he has the right role, so I am going to withhold judgement until I see him on screen.

    Jon Hamm has the perfect look and seriousness and would have been FANTASTIC but for one problem…he got screwed by the pick for Superman. They went too young. I always think of the Justice League as being older dudes, but this may just be because tey have been around so long (didn’t Hal Jordan have gray streaks in his har at one point?) If they are trying to cast them all younger as part of a multi-year plan a la the Avengers, Hamm wouldn’t work.

    I never liked Michael Keaton. I could never take him seriously. I had hopes for George Clooney but the script was an abomination. I always thought Alec Baldwin would have been perfect. Jim Caviezel
    wouldn’t be a terrible compromise. He’s a bit older but doesn’t look it.Report

  14. Barry says:

    Kazzy: “As one of the bigger comic book guys here,, do you think it is all that important who is behind the mask? The actor playing Batman has always struck me as less important than most other pieces of the films. ”

    As a friend said, cast the secret identity. The man behind the mask/cloak/costume doesn’t even need to be the same guy.Report

  15. Kyle Cupp says:

    Michael Fassbender could be interesting.

    Affleck is a great actor, but I’m just not seeing him in the role. But I could be surprised.

    And I would like to see Jimmy Kimmel cast as Robin.Report

  16. Mike Schilling says:

    Jason Bateman as Batman.
    Michael Cera as Robin.
    Jeffrey Tambor as Alfred the butler.
    Jessica Walter as Aunt Harriet.
    Will Arnett as The Joker.
    Ben Stiller as The Riddler.
    Andy Richter as The Penguin.
    Portia DeRossi as Poison Ivy.Report

  17. Pinky says:

    As noted, this isn’t a Batman movie. What you want out of the actor playing Batman depends a lot on what the plot is calling for out of Superman. Traditionally, they’re each other’s foils. If you want a gritty farmboy Clark Kent, you want a spoiled Bruce Wayne (that’s how I’d picture Affleck). If you want a good-guy Superman, you want a dark Batman – how about Adam Baldwin? Think about it – how does Superman change if you’ve got Zachary Quinto as Batman, or Vince Vaughn, or Sean Connery?Report

  18. J@m3z Aitch says:

    The first five people in the Ottumwa, Iowa, phone book?Report

  19. NoPublic says:

    I’m gonna make a topical suggestion, but not because it’s topical.

    Wentworth Miller

    I think he could pull it off, and I think he’d mesh well with Cavill, even though he’s nearly a decade older.Report

  20. Alan Scott says:

    My take: It doesn’t matter who they cast. Warner Brothers just doesn’t know what its doing with its superhero properties, and the movie is going to be terrible regardless.Report

  21. Mark says:

    How is Josh Brolin not on this list?Report

  22. ScarletNumber says:

    Did you sign the petition on change.org?

    When Rush said there was an actual petition, I thought he was kidding, but sure enough there it is.

    As for Elba, I have no problem with Batman being black. Hell, to me, it makes more sense for him to be black, since bats are black.Report

  23. Greg says:

    No..Batman cannot be black. He was not created to be black..whoever made that call is a twit. I say Gerard Butler should do this one.Report

  24. Shazbot3 says:

    I always thought Batman was supposed to be a little bit psycho in some way or another. Either brooding and dark or sociopathic or weird-silly a la Adam West Batman or something a little off. That’s why I liked Keaton. He has the crazy eyes to look a bit evil and cruel and he also has a charming eccentric routine. He’s made a career of playing psychos and charming eccentrics. Kilmer was okay, although a weirdly soft-seeming Batman, which might have partly been the movie’s fault. Bale does “a little sociopathic” very well, and got famous for it, but as noted, had trouble eccentric Bruce Wayne.

    But Clooney and even moreso Afflec will really have trouble with the psycho-weird aspects of Batman. Clooney could (and sort of did) do a chaming modernized Adam West Batman. But scary-psycho isn’t really in Clooney’s range. And Afflec is miles away from being able to do either scary-psycho or weirdly-eccentric. He is the definition of milque-toast everyman, which can work well for him in roles where an everyman is put into a tough situation. In those roles, Afflec is quite good. Character actor he is not.

    In conclusion, Michael Caine or Samuel L. Jackson,Report

  25. NewDealer says:

    The rage strong over the Internet over this choice.

    I don’t really have a strong opinion over this because I’m a bit tired of superheros and special effects at the movies. But I do notice this about fandom culture, there is no rage like nerd rage.*

    *This is often evidence by the amount of whining I see about how SF and Fantasy are not respected despite being the biggest things in movies and TV right now with most Hollywood movies and TV with Games of Thrones. Yet every time there is an Academy Award nominations announcement, I see a lot of complaints about the lack of SF Blockbusters on the list and some people rumbling about why box office should be the most important consideration. It shouldn’t be and there can be a place for non-special effects movies.Report

  26. Kaia says:

    My opinion is simply this: Russell Crowe = Batman. Yeaaa, I said it!Report

  27. Sean says:

    David Wenham would be an excellent choice in my opinion.Report

  28. Justin says:

    This is stupidest line up of actors chosen:-D The stupidest part was Jim Caviezel playing Batman, and here are the reasons:

    Reason 1) Jim played the real Superman in Passion of the Christ, and it’ll be weird to see him acting with the mythological superman:-D

    Reason 2) Jim Caviezel acted with Henry Cavill in The Count of Monte Cristo. At the time, Henry was only a teenager, and Jim played Henry Cavill’s father in the movie. Haha! It would be too weird seeing Jim acting with Henry as if they were equals in a Batman Superman movie.Report

  29. Nob Akimoto says:

    I kinda think this is irrelevant given the damage Man of Steel did to that iteration of Superman the character anyway.Report

  30. Ian Somerhalder is a very possible casting choice for Christian Grey in Fifty Shades of Grey
    Christian GreyReport