Casey Affleck on his brother, Ben, playing Batman: ‘He’s not going to do that movie’
Emily Ross
Ben Affleck and his brother, Casey, troll each other through the media. Before Casey won the Oscar for Manchester By The Sea Ben told a bunch of highly embarrassing childhood and personal stories about him, like the fact that Casey (allegedly) pulls his pants all the way down at urinals (is this so they don’t get splashback? IDK about guy stuff like that), that Casey is scared of butterflies and that he had to ask if Back To The Future was a true story. (I mean Casey was 10 when it came out, but he should have known better.) So this latest story, about Casey saying that Ben is no longer going to play Batman, could be more of the same from these two. Plus I doubt they talk much. They hung out earlier this month at a comedy show with Ben’s girlfriend, Lindsay Shookus. They don’t seem like the type of brothers who talk every day or even every week.
Anyway Casey was doing a radio interview with a sports radio show called Dale & Holley out of Boston. (You can watch that below. It was in honor of Casey throwing out the first pitch at Fenway Park.) They talked a lot of sports of course, and Casey told a cute anecdote about how it was his idea to do the Dunkin Donuts sketch for SNL. (Watch that if you need a laugh.) Dunkin Donuts actually sent him a $50 gift card after that. They asked Casey on if Ben would be in the standalone Batman movie and when one guy called him “tremendous” Casey said:
“I thought he was an OK Batman. No, he was great. He was great. He’s a hero, so he had something to channel and work with there. But he’s not going to do that movie [The Batman], I don’t think. Sorry to say.”
“Is that breaking news? Because I was just kind of making that up, I don’t know.”
You can watch that part of the interview at 6:00 into the video below. Casey smiles very slightly and then quickly straightens his face out again. I really think he’s messing with Ben. When asked if Casey would take his place he said “I don’t think so” and that he’s not going to do a superhero movie because “they’re all taken,” but “maybe if they found one for me.”
Casey is messing with Ben and he knows that he’ll get headlines for saying this. Ben just did an interview with EW in which he said his Batman was going to be more “traditional” in the upcoming movies. I interpret this as an indication that they’re dialing back Zach Snyder’s dark, brooding, always having dream sequences character. We’ve already heard that Joss Whedon is stepping in as director for Justice League (which has needed massive reshoots) after Snyder suffered a personal tragedy. Of course we heard that Ben wasn’t going to do Batman. A lot of people question his fitness and commitment to the role, but he’ll probably plod along and pull it through last minute. It’s doubtful he’ll get sober again for any length of time though, sadly.
Casey’s comments on Ben come at about 6:00.
