Friday, August 23, 2013

Fan Reaction to the New Batman

If you read my past posts, you know I'm a Ben Affleck fan. Judge away. Obviously, I'm pretty happy about his new role. So this post is coming from a biased place.

Believe in GOTHAM.
But the reaction to him being cast has been incredibly annoying. OMGDAREDEVIL! Shut up. People were not going to happy with whoever Warner Brothers chose to don the cowl.

Cast Joseph Gordon-Levitt? "But he's John Blake! Batman NEEDS to be Bruce Wayne!"
Cast Armie Hammer or Ryan Gosling? "Too young! And he's BLONDE! Terrible!"
Cast Orlando Bloom or Richard Armitage? "Is Batman a HOBBIT?!"
Cast Scott Adkins? "Who? They need an ACTOR!"
Cast Jeffrey Dean Morgan or Matthew Goode? "OMG, did you even see WATCHMEN? Terrible!"
Cast Josh Brolin? "Why so OLD?"
Cast Christian Bale? "THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!"
Cast an unknown? "Henry Cavill is already an unknown! BORING!"

I could continue.

But seriously... shut up. Wait for the trailer. Or, even better, wait for the actual movie.

Mark Waid (well, Stephen Wacker) had a premonition.
Art by Chris Samnee.
I freaking love their Daredevil series...
I've seen a bunch of long-time Batman fans mention that back in the late 80s, when Michael Keaton was cast, there was a pretty big uproar from the fans of the character. 'How could a comedic actor... BEETLEJUICE... play a character like Batman?!?' That worked out pretty good, didn't it? Fast forward about 20 years, with Heath Ledger being cast as the Joker. Similar reaction.... he was pretty good too, eh?

I know this is the age of social media, where everyone can weigh in on anything immediately... but how about we sit back and let Zack Snyder and Warner Brothers do their thing? Say what you will about the finished Man of Steel product, but we can all agree they knew what they were doing casting the thing... right? While the movie isn't without flaws, the leading trio of Cavill/Adams/Shannon were pretty spot on, I'd say.

Could Ben Affleck be another George Clooney? Maybe. But why bother waiting to see? Let's just trash the performance now, no need to see it. They should just put nipples on the Batsuit and call it a day.