Ben Affleck Reveals Why He Will Not Reprise Batman Role Ever: 'I’ve Lost Interest'

Ben Affleck opens up about his unpleasant experience filming the Batman role and why he will never return to the character.

Written by Ipshita Chakraborty , Entertainment Journalist

Published on Mar 25, 2025 | 06:35 PM GMT | 4.6K

CC: Getty Images

Ben Affleck is officially retiring from superhero films, confessing he's had a change of heart on the genre following his rough experience starring as Batman.

Affleck recently opened up to GQ about his stint as the iconic DC superhero in Zack Snyder's films, such as Justice League and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. He called his stint as Batman a painful chapter, attributing it to a combination of professional and personal difficulties.

He said, "There are a number of reasons why that was a really excruciating experience. And they don't all have to do with the simple dynamic of, say, being in a superhero movie or whatever."

The actor added, "I am not interested in going down that particular genre again, not because of that bad experience, but just... I've lost interest in what was of interest about it to me."

Affleck admitted that his own misery during that period was part of the negative experience, confessing that he wasn't contributing much good energy to the set.

Affleck continued, "But I certainly wouldn't want to replicate an experience like that. A lot of it was misalignment of agendas, understandings, and expectations. And also, by the way, I wasn't bringing anything particularly wonderful to that equation at the time, either. I had my own failings, significant failings, in that process and at that time."

Although he did his job, he confessed that just showing up was not enough to produce something worthwhile. In addition to his individual issues, Affleck cited a misalignment of creative ideas as a key frustration.

He mentioned that the production was plagued by a "misalignment of agendas, understandings, expectations" — a conflict that created a challenging production process.

Thinking back on the portrayal of his version of Batman, Affleck explained that he was interested in playing older, damaged Bruce Wayne — an artistic vision he still appreciates.

But he conceded the darker, more adult tone of Snyder's vision ultimately tipped too far toward the older crowd. He remembered when he first knew this was an issue: "What happened was it started to skew too old for a big part of the audience. Like even my own son at the time was too scared to watch the movie. And so when I saw that, I was like, 'Oh shit, we have a problem.'"

This gap between the darker path taken by the filmmakers and the studio's need to regain younger audiences created an untenable tension; Ben Affleck said — one that rendered it impossible to continue playing the character.