Casey Affleck Says Ben Affleck Won’t Be In ‘The Batman,’ Then Walks It Back

When Ben Affleck announced he wouldn’t be directing Batman standalone movie The Batman after all, director Matt Reeves (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) quickly signed on and started out fresh with a new script. That hasn’t stopped rumors claiming Affleck might back out, considering he said in January, “If it doesn’t come together in a way I think is really great I’m not going to do it.” Those rumors came back around last month, although Affleck seemed to sort of deny them at San Diego Comic-Con.

Now Affleck’s brother Casey Affleck is stoking the kerfuffle with an offhand comment during an interview with WEEI Sports Radio to promote A Ghost Story. (Assume we made a Batman pun about “Casey At The Bat” here and we’ll move on.) The comment comes six minutes into the interview when Casey is asked about his brother’s performance and if the rumors about him not doing a standalone Batman movie are true:

“I thought he was an okay Batman. No, I thought he was great. He was great. He’s a hero, so he had something to channel and work with there. But he’s not going to do that movie [The Batman], I don’t think. Sorry to say. […] Is that breaking news Because I was just kind of making that up, I don’t know.”

It isn’t clear if he was just trolling or accidentally revealing something huge, but we’re falling on the side of “probably trolling” because it’s Casey Affleck. His deadpan comment and equally deadpan backtracking seems like another one of his “hilarious” “pranks,” especially since he gave this interview on brother Ben’s birthday. Making sure his brother’s phone explodes with panicky work-related texts on his birthday is exactly the sort of joke I’d expect from those two guys. Or at least that’s what I’d do to my brothers if I ever got the chance.