It seems that just about everyone and their mother has had an opinion about the casting of Ben Affleck as Batman — we will call it Batfleck from here on out for reasons of awesome—in the upcoming Man of Steel sequel, and Patton Oswalt is no different. But, after reading his open letter to the Batfleck naysayers of the Internet, we're tempted to call for some collective agreement that his word just be the last word, because damn, he made some really good points here. Oswalt posted the full letter on his Facebook for the masses to consider:
No matter how many times you post your stupid “Fire Ben Affleck from Playing Batman” petition, I’m going to delete it and block you. Take a deep breath, and think for a second:
Yeah, the dude’s made some bad films. Every actor has. Every actor does. Every actor will. It’s a huge, arcing career and NO ONE has control over where it goes. Movie to movie, year to year, you’re collaborating and trying and risking and, sometimes, yes — failing.
Plus, everyone seems to forget that he had the world dropped in his lap when he was YOUNG. And, judging by how other suddenly-famous youngsters do in the same situation, he fared pretty well. Even when it went wrong, he seemed to keep a self-deprecating, long-view philosophy about the burning freak carousel he’d found himself on.
And then what happened? I mean, he’d fallen from a HEIGHT. You know what happens to 95% of people who weather a descent that steep? They come apart, fray at all of their sanity nodes, and give up.
But then there’s the 5% who embrace crushing defeat and see it for the gift it is. And here’s the gift: when you fail, and fail UTTERLY, you wake up the next morning and see that the world didn’t end. And then the fear of failure is gone. And you’re free. You’re free to proceed on your own terms and pace — if you have the ego that permits you to.
Ben brushed himself off, realized he’d kept his eyes open on the movies he’d done, and started directing. And he’s become a damn good one.
A Batman portrayed by someone who’s tasted humiliation and a reversal of all personal valences — kind of like Grant Morrison’s “Zen warrior” version of Batman, post-ARKHAM ASYLUM, who was, in the words of Superman, “…the most dangerous man on the planet”? Think for a second and admit that Ben Affleck is closer to THAT top-shelf iteration of The Dark Knight than pretty much anyone in Hollywood right now.
I’d write more, but I have to go work on my post about how an overweight 44 year-old comedian with bad feet and insomnia would be a bold choice for The Joker.
He has a point. Remember how much everyone criticized Chrisopher Nolan after he hired Heath Ledger in 2006 to play The Joker, then when everyone saw The Dark Knight in 2008 (a few months after Ledger's death), everyone loved him? GeekTyrant did, and they compiled a whole list of those criticisms for everyone's perusal.
People, especially, on the Internet, love to talk and snark about everything, but the fact of the matter is that Affleck was hired for a reason. It's a waste of time to criticize this early in the game, especially when there's absolutely no evidence that he'll rock or crash/burn in this role.
Now that that's settled—who's up for starting a petition to get Oswalt in this thing as The Joker?
