Ben Affleck Responds to ‘The Revenant’ Director’s Harsh Criticisms of Superhero Films
A couple of years ago, The Revenant and Birdman director Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu shared some particularly severe opinions about the prevalence of superhero films, referring to them as “cultural genocide.” Ouch. But Ben Affleck disagrees, and having been on both sides of the equation, the actor and director is in a position to offer an informed but diplomatic response.
While in Mexico City to promote Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Affleck was asked about Iñárritu’s remarks to Deadline back in 2014, when he referred to superhero movies as “poison” and “culture genocide.” Via THR, here’s what Affleck had to say about it:
I know Alejandro and he’s a great guy and a brilliant filmmaker and I admire him enormously. And El Chivo (Mexican cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki) is a friend of mine. Alejandro is also given to over-statement. I wouldn’t call it cultural genocide, but he’s brilliant and his point is taken that you can’t just swallow up cinema with any kind of movie.
In his previous interview, Iñárritu also explained that while he enjoys the occasional superhero film, he finds them to be too thematically right-wing, adding, “I always see them as killing people because they do not believe in what you believe, or they are not who you want them to be.”
The Oscar-winning director additionally disagrees with the notion that superheroes are the contemporary form of Greek mythology, which is a description Snyder, Affleck and his co-star Henry Cavill have used often over the past year with regards to Batman v Superman. At the Mexico City press conference, Cavill reiterated:
I read Greek mythology as a boy and I loved it. These guys who we are playing are just modern mythological heroes in today’s pop culture.
In lighter news from the conference, Affleck responded to the rumor that he rewrote the Batman v Superman script on set every day in his full Batman costume:
That is the dumbest rumor. I just like how if I was gonna go write, I would put on this bat suit first because it’s so comfortable to write in. I didn’t rewrite anything in any outfit, my underwear or otherwise.
To be fair, every actor who has played Batman has struggled with the comfortability and mobility of the Batsuit, so it’s pretty funny to imagine Affleck on set fumbling with a pen or mashing keys on a laptop while wearing a cape and those heavy duty gauntlets.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice opens on March 25.
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