Zack Snyder Addresses BATMAN v SUPERMAN Scrutiny From Fans; Ben Affleck Says He's "Proud" Of The Movie
Zack Snyder talks here about some of the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice "insanity" he's seen online, while Ben Affleck reveals just how much all of your negative Batfleck comments hurt his feelings.
Of all the comic book movies on the way this year, none have faced as much scrutiny as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. From day one, there have been rumours, crazy theories, and general nitpicking, though with a release this massive, perhaps that shouldn't come as too much as a surprise. One person taking it all in stride is director Zack Snyder as he recently explained in an interview with The LA Times. "The tweets, comments, articles, blogs — it's insanity. I tune it out to the extent that, when it's really dumb, then we go, "OK, someone stomp this [rumor] because it's stupid." But mostly I just go, "Thank God they're talking about the movie." The fact that they care enough to get online and either rage or praise — that's just cool for the culture, for the fans."
Someone else giving that some thought is Ben Affleck, and he added: "Nobody tweeted about "Casablanca," and look at how they did. [Laughs] From directing movies myself, at this point I always feel too enmeshed with it, where I get this panicked sense of like, "Is it good? It's horrible, right? It's going to bomb." But I have a little more sense of remove from this. I feel relaxed and I'm proud of the movie and excited for people to see it. It's a much nicer feeling. I'm so glad I'm not Zack." Talking of scrutiny, the actor was then asked about the initial response (which was overwhelmingly negative for some reasons) to him being cast as Batman in the movie. "I wasn't totally up to speed with the extent to which the Internet can react to this stuff, and Warner Bros. was like, "Look, we just want to give you a little heads-up." And they kind of briefed me on the reactions to some past casting choices: negative reactions to Heath [Ledger] being cast as Joker and other past stuff I wasn't even aware of. In my experience, the truth is, if your work is good, people are going to like it. If it's bad, people won't. The rest of it is just speculation. It's like when a team drafts a player: Fans can speculate, but you've got to wait until the season starts to see how they play."
Did seeing all those complaints and petitions hurt his feelings though? "I'm pretty grown up about this stuff. If I had my feelings getting hurt about stuff that was said on the Internet, I would have been gone a long time ago, my friend. [Laughs]" Were you one of the original Batfleck haters?