page_title: Ben Affleck
section_title: 2016–present: Batman role and continued directing
hierarchical_section_title: Ben Affleck / Career / 2016–present: Batman role and continued directing
caption_attribution_description: Ben Affleck speaking at the 2016 San Diego Comic Con International, for "Warner Bros. Pictures", at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. Please attribute to Gage Skidmore if used elsewhere.
context_page_description: Benjamin Géza Affleck-Boldt is an American actor, film director, producer, and screenwriter. His accolades include two Academy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. He began his career as a child when he starred in the PBS educational series The Voyage of the Mimi. He later appeared in the independent coming-of-age comedy Dazed and Confused and various Kevin Smith films, including Mallrats, Chasing Amy and Dogma. Affleck gained wider recognition when he and childhood friend Matt Damon won the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for writing Good Will Hunting, which they also starred in. He then established himself as a leading man in studio films, including the disaster film Armageddon, the war drama Pearl Harbor, and the thrillers The Sum of All Fears and Changing Lanes.
  After a career downturn, during which he appeared in Daredevil and Gigli, Affleck received a Golden Globe nomination for portraying George Reeves in the noir biopic Hollywoodland. His directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone, which he also co-wrote, was well received. He then directed, co-wrote and starred in the crime drama The Town and directed and starred in the political thriller Argo.
context_section_description: Given Affleck's growing reputation as a filmmaker, his decision to star as Batman in the 2016 superhero film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was regarded by Dave Itzkoff of The New York Times as "a somewhat bewildering choice". Although the casting choice was met with intense fan backlash, Affleck's performance ultimately earned a positive reception. Andrew Barker of Variety found him "a winningly cranky, charismatic presence," while Brian Truitt of USA Today enjoyed his "strong" and "surprisingly emotional" take on the character. Affleck reprised his role as Batman twice, making a cameo appearance in Suicide Squad (2016) and starring in Justice League (2017). Justice League drew mixed opinions from critics; Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Affleck "looks like he'd rather be almost anywhere else but here."
  In addition to his various Batman commitments, Affleck appeared in two other films in 2016. He starred as an autistic accountant in the action thriller The Accountant (2016), which was an unexpected commercial success. Peter Debruge of Variety felt Affleck's "boy-next-door" demeanor – "so normal and non-actorly that most of his performances feel like watching one of your buddies up on screen" – was "a terrific fit" for the role. Stephen Holden of The New York Times wondered why Affleck, "looking appropriately dead-eyed and miserable," committed himself to the film. Live by Night, which Affleck wrote, directed, co-produced, and starred in, was released in late 2016. Adapted from Dennis Lehane's novel of the same name, the Prohibition-era gangster drama received largely unenthusiastic reviews and failed to recoup its $65 million production budget. David Sims of The Atlantic described it as "a fascinating mess of a movie" and criticized Affleck's "stiff, uncomfortable" performance. He noted that one of the last action scenes "is so wonderfully staged, its action crisp and easy to follow, that it reminds you what skill Affleck has with the camera". In October 2016, Affleck and Damon made a one-off stage appearance for a live reading of the Good Will Hunting screenplay at New York's Skirball Theater.
  Amidst an alcoholism relapse, Affleck did not work in 2017. He stepped down as director and writer of The Batman, as well as left the role due to "lack of interest in comic-book stories" and filming of the drug-trafficking thriller Triple Frontier was postponed in order to accommodate his treatment for "health issues". Upon Triple Frontier's release in 2019, Rodrigo Perez of The Playlist remarked that director J.C. Chandor "gets a lot of mileage out of the Sad Affleck narrative and perhaps both director and actor lean into the idea." Later in 2019, Affleck made a cameo appearance in Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, having had little contact with Kevin Smith since the making of Clerks II in 2006. Affleck played a supporting role as a diplomat in Dee Rees's political thriller The Last Thing He Wanted (2020). The Netflix movie, filmed in mid-2018, received negative reviews from critics, with Tomris Laffly of Variety describing Affleck's performance as "oddly removed".
  Affleck's starring role as a recovering alcoholic in the sports drama The Way Back (2020) was widely praised. The themes of the movie were "close to home" for Affleck. He relapsed during pre-production in 2018 and the movie was shot in the days after he left rehab; Affleck agreed to put his salary in escrow and was accompanied to set by a sober coach. Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair said it was hard to avoid the movie's "meta angle": "Affleck handles his self-conscious task with a generous humility—giving a performance built not out of histrionics or big actor moments, but instead from the messy details of a man in a plateaued distress". David Sims of The Atlantic praised the "subtlety", "vulnerability" and "lumbering physicality" of his performance, describing it as "the rawest and most natural" work of his career. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, cinemas closed in the second week of the movie's release and Warner Bros. made it available to view-on-demand 
caption: Affleck at the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con
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