Ben Affleck Reflects on Justice League as His Career’s Low Point, Critiques Warner Bros. for Exploiting Zack Snyder’s Loss

In a revealing chat on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Ben Affleck opened up about his challenging experience while filming the 2017 movie Justice League, calling it the “low point” of his career. The actor, known for his role as Batman, criticized the film’s executives for how they handled the tragic death of director Zack Snyder’s daughter, suggesting it was used as a justification to replace him during reshoots.

When asked about the scrapped solo Batman film in the DCEU, where he was set to reprise his role, Affleck reflected on his time working on Snyder’s Justice League. He expressed his love for portraying a Frank Miller-inspired Batman but noted that the overall experience was so negative that it taught him “how not to make a movie.” He specifically condemned Warner Bros.’ treatment of Snyder during the production.

“Boy, that was shitty,” Affleck remarked. “Him being taken off that movie, and the reshoots that we did—if you want the low point of my career, it was that. Somebody’s death by suicide eclipses everything. And the way that was, I thought, frankly, used as an excuse… I just thought that was one of the shittiest things I’ve ever seen. It was so gross.”

Snyder’s daughter passed away during the post-production of Justice League, leading to his replacement by Joss Whedon, known for directing The Avengers and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Whedon then went on to reshoot significant portions of the film.

Ray Fisher, who played Cyborg, later accused Whedon of “gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable” behavior during the reshoots, and he criticized Warner Bros. executives Jon Berg and Geoff Johns for enabling such conduct. Co-star Jason Momoa backed Fisher’s claims, while Gal Gadot, who portrayed Wonder Woman, stated that Whedon “threatened” her career after she refused to record certain lines.

Affleck further explained that he heard “second-hand” accounts of his co-stars’ troubling experiences on set: “The whole environment and vibe, much of which I wasn’t privy to, but that I heard about second-hand, in terms of Ray and Gal and other people’s experiences, it was just like… ‘Wow, this is about as gross as it gets.’ And I was drinking too much. That’s when I started to feel like, ‘I’d like to quit drinking, and I’m having a hard time not drinking.’”