“‘Gone Girl,’ ‘Fifty Shades of Grey,’ ‘Star Wars,’ ‘Batman,’ ‘Lord of the Rings’… We have these cultural stories that people have attachments to, they care very much about, the fans have imagined it, they write fan fiction, and they get very into it and they’re certainly entitled to those feelings,” says Affleck of the negative nellies. “This is the movie that, more than any other movie I’ve done combined, people come up to me and are really excited. So to have we all this attention, some of it’s positive, some of it’s negative, I think in the end the truth is, you make the movie and the movie works or it doesn’t.”
Interviewer Matt Lauer responded, “Like Daniel Craig, I always want to look at the people who fire off the criticism and say, ‘Wait until you see one second of footage, give the guy a chance!’ I think you’re gonna be great in it.”
Affleck also took the time to praise the makers of this newest incarnation of the Dark Knight’s legacy: “These guys did a pretty incredible job. Zack Snyder is the director and he’s working from a script by Chris Terrio, who wrote ‘Argo,’ and they really conceived it in a new and interesting way.”
Coming to theaters on May 6, 2016, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice stars Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Amy Adams, Laurence Fishburne, Diane Lane, Jesse Eisenberg, Jeremy Irons, Holly Hunter and Scoot McNairy.