Batfleck Forever
According to Affleck , “ Before I took the role , Warner Bros . gave me a bunch of past reactions to casting and said , ‘ Are you sure you want to get into this ? This is part and parcel of these movies now . There ’ s a lot of active fans with a lot of opinions .’ To me , having been through a certain amount of that , it doesn ’ t really . . . Everyone ’ s entitled to their opinion . I wouldn ’ t have taken the part if I didn ’ t trust my instincts in terms of the filmmaking ” ( Lee ). The actor claims that Warner Bros . actually advised him to stay off-line or a while , but the future Batman shrugged it off with the disclaimer , “ I handle shit .” In a 2013 article , Wired . com describes Affleck ’ s “ mindset at the time was that ‘ I can handle any snub . I can handle anything .’ Or so he thought . When the online backlash against his casting began , Affleck unwisely decided to scroll down on an article announcing the news to the comment section . ‘ I looked at the first comment and it says ‘ NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !’ And I was done ! We ’ re going to be Luddites for a while ’” ( McMillan ).
While the online response to Batlfleck has been intense , no such backlash has emerged from the former wearers of the Batman cape and cowl . In fact , the response from this exclusive Bat-club has been supportive . Keaton , who recently and ironically starred in the 2014 Oscar – winning Birdman about an aging actor attempting to recapture former glory after walking away from a lucrative yet unfulfilling superhero series , voiced encouragement to Affleck saying , “ He ’ s going to be great ” (“ Michael Keaton ”). From Val Kilmer , who replaced Keaton in Batman Forever , came the tweet , “ Give Ben a chance !” ( Punchko ). George Clooney , the final Batman actor in the pre-Christian Bale era , declined to offer his advice , claiming , “ I am the least qualified person to comment on
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