Ben Affleck is opening up about a particular low point in his career – and no, he’s not talking about Gigli.
“The truth is, the experience of Justice League for me was so, so negative for lots of different reasons,” the Oscar winner said during an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused earlier this week.
He recalled that “some” of this negativity was “to do with where I was personally”, as well as “the tragedy that happened during the time” and “the fact that I really saw how not to make a movie like that”.
“When the studio is at odds with the filmmaker, you’re really making a mistake,” he claimed. “That was what really doomed that.”
While director Zack Snyder was going for a darker tone with the ensemble superhero movie Justice League, the film studio Warner Bros. was reportedly looking for something different.
The filmmaker later stepped away from the project after his 20-year-old daughter died by suicide, at which point Warner Bros. handed over the movie to director Joss Whedon, who reshot most of it.
“Boy, that was shitty,” Ben said. “Him being taken off that movie, and the reshoots that we did — if you want the low point of my career, it was that.”
“Somebody’s death by suicide, that eclipses everything,” the director said solemnly. “And then the way in which that was, I thought, frankly, used as an excuse. I just thought that was one of the shittiest things I’ve ever seen. You know? It was so gross.”
Zack did ultimately get to release his version of the film in 2021, something that Ben said made him feel “really glad”.
He “manipulated his way into getting his thing released, which was fucking great,” the Gone Girl star enthused. “I was really happy for him.”
Ben has spoken about the “excruciating” experience of working on Justice League before.
“There are a number of reasons why that was a really excruciating experience. And they don’t all have to do with the simple dynamic of, say, being in a superhero movie or whatever,” he told British GQ back in 2025.
“I am not interested in going down that particular genre again, not because of that bad experience, but just: I’ve lost interest in what was of interest about it to me.”
He continued: “I certainly wouldn’t want to replicate an experience like that. A lot of it was misalignment of agendas, understandings, expectations.”
