Quentin Tarantino On Batfleck: Don’t Care, Batman Sucks
Enough celebrities have come out in full support of Ben Affleck’s casting as Bruce Wayne/Batman in Man of Steel 2 that fans have cooled some of their fiery criticism. But could a run of apathy from a respected director get things going again?
French language entertainment magazine Les Inrocks asked director Quentin Tarantino what he thinks of all the hubbub over Ben Affleck (since everything comes back to this casting decision). His thoughts?
“I have to admit that I don’t really have an opinion,” Tarantino said (translation courtesy of The Playlist).
Why? Well, it’s not so much Ben Affleck’s problem.
“Because Batman is not a very interesting character,” he said. “For any actor. There is simply not much to play. I think Michael Keaton did it the best, and I wish good luck to Ben Affleck. But, you know who would have made a great Batman? Alec Baldwin in the ’80s.”
Too bad Alec Baldwin blew his dark and brooding superhero on The Shadow. But, if you want to sort-of know what Baldwin Batman would have been like, you can pick it up on DVD for $3.00 on Amazon.
Tarantino also talked a bit about why he liked infamous box office bomb The Lone Ranger so much. Though the second act was a weak follow to a powerful first, the veteran director said it call came back around at the climactic train sequence.
“When I saw it, I kept thinking, ‘What, that’s the film that everybody says is crap? Seriously?’ “
He could have done without all the Native American slaughter, though.
“I like Tonto’s backstory—the idea that his tribe got slaughtered because of him; that’s a real comic-book thing. But the slaughter of the tribe, by gunfire, from the cavalry, it left a bitter taste in my mouth. The Indians have really been victims of a genocide. So slaughtering them again in an entertaining movie, Buster Keaton style… That ruined the fun a bit for me. I simply found it…ugly.”
Of course, his latest effort Django Unchained had its fair share of violence couched in Antebellum slavery, but the two aren’t even related, he said.
“I didn’t make ‘Lone Ranger’…that’s two different things. I did an examination of America. I tried to juggle with different things and, frankly, I think I did it better than them.”
Do Quentin Tarantino’s thoughts on Ben Affleck as Batman change your mind one way or the other?
[Image: Shutterstock]
