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Ben Affleck quit The Batman because he would ‘drink himself to death’ if he continued

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Updated on July 6, 2023

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Ben Affleck was Batman once upon a time, not so long ago. In fact, he was also set to write and direct The Batman, a standalone Dark Knight spinoff film set in the DC Extended Universe. That certainly did not happen, and the years he spent working on the project were among the worst of his life.

Affleck is now explaining the facts that led to his resignation from DC after formally abandoning the role of Batman last year. Affleck revealed in a recent in-depth interview with The New York Times that the breakup of his marriage to Jennifer Garner led to increasing drinking and a rough period filming Justice League—so tumultuous that a buddy advised him against reprising the role for The Batman.

Affleck, who has portrayed Batman three movies, remarked, “I showed somebody The Batman script. They said, ‘I think the script is good. I also think you’ll drink yourself to death if you go through what you just went through again.’”

“I drank relatively normally for a long time,” said the Oscar winner, who divorced Garner in 2018 after a protracted separation. “What happened was that I started drinking more and more when my marriage was falling apart.”

Affleck spoke up about his difficulties with alcoholism and suffering, which coincided with his highest-profile endeavors in the middle of the previous decade, including Batman, in an interview with Brooks Barnes.

“People with compulsive behaviour, and I am one, have this kind of basic discomfort all the time that they’re trying to make go away,” Affleck told The Times. “You’re trying to make yourself feel better with eating or drinking or sex or gambling or shopping or whatever. But that ends up making your life worse. Then you do more of it to make that discomfort go away. Then the real pain starts. It becomes a vicious cycle you can’t break. That’s at least what happened to me.”

While Affleck will not feature in The Batman in 2021 (which will instead star Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz, and Paul Dano, among others), he does have a number of high-profile films coming out in 2020, beginning with The Way Back in March. He’ll also be seen in Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel and in a “erotic thriller” called Deep Water with Knives Out breakthrough actress Ana de Armas later this year.

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Ben Affleck married Jennifer Garner in 2005 and the couple has three children together. He admitted that he still feels guilty about leaving his marriage, but that he has moved on. “The biggest regret of my life is this divorce,” Affleck said, using the present tense markedly. ““Shame is really toxic. There is no positive by-product of shame. It’s just stewing in a toxic, hideous feeling of low self-worth and self-loathing.”

“What happened was that I started drinking more and more when my marriage was falling apart. This was 2015, 2016. My drinking, of course, created more marital problems.”

This was also about the time that he was cast as Bruce Wayne and Batman. When he took on the role of Batman in 2013, it was hailed as the pinnacle of a comeback story that saw him winning the Academy Award for Best Picture for Argo the same year. Nonetheless, by the time Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was released in 2016, Affleck had become clearly dissatisfied with the whole production process.

Aside from the gloomy memes about “Sad Affleck” that swept Twitter and Reddit when he looked sad during BvS interviews, the film and his performance received a polarizing response from critics and fans, leading to widespread disappointment. Affleck’s second significant (and final) appearance as Batman, 2017’s Justice League, was one of the fallouts.