Ben Affleck Calls The ‘Justice League’ Experience “Awful” & Recalls The Moment He Didn’t Want To Direct ‘Batman’

Ben Affleck has been pretty much adamant that he’s done with the Bruce Wayne/Batman role and recently told us he was “done” with IP roles. While hardcore fans to move goalposts and insist that he could still stay, again, just this week, he said that his cameo in “The Flash,” which had already been teed up as a goodbye to the character, would be a “nice finish” for the role.

In a very recent Los Angeles Times article promoting “The Tender Bar,” Affleck elaborated further remembering the moment when he felt like he could no longer direct the Batman movie he was once writing for himself to star in.

“Directing ‘Batman’ is a good example. I looked at it and thought, ‘I’m not going to be happy doing this. The person who does this should love it,’ he recalled. “You’re supposed to always want these things, and I probably would have loved doing it at 32 or something. But it was the point where I started to realize it’s not worth it. It’s just a wonderful benefit of reorienting and recalibrating your priorities that once it started being more about the experience, I felt more at ease.”

READ MORE: Ben Affleck Says His Favorite Batman Scenes Are In ‘Flash’ & Calls The Film “A Really Nice Finish” For His Character

Apparently, it wasn’t just giving up the reigns of the new solo Batman over to director Matt Reeves and actor Robert Pattinson, that was an issue for him. Evidently. Joss Whedon‘s reshoots for “Justice League” combined with outside factors also contributed to his souring on the superhero role.

Affleck described the “Justice League” production as “the nadir for me.”

“That was a bad experience because of a confluence of things: my own life, my divorce, being away too much, the competing agendas and then [director] Zack [Snyder]’s personal tragedy [Snyder’s daughter Autumn died by suicide in 2017] and the reshooting,” he said of when Joss Whedon took over as director from Snyder.

“It just was the worst experience. It was awful,” Affleck said, candidly. “It was everything that I didn’t like about this. That became the moment where I said, ‘I’m not doing this anymore. It’s not even about, like, ‘Justice League’ was so bad. Because it could have been anything.”

His exit from the DC Comics movies ended up opening the door for Robert Pattinson to take on the cowl for the foreseeable future and what looks like Michael Keaton‘s return for multiple projects in the main cinematic universe after playing the Dark Knight in two films for Tim Burton.

I don’t know how many times the fella has to hammer home that he’s finished with Batman until it finally sinks in, but if this doesn’t do it, I’m not sure what will.