Ben Affleck has revealed Lucasfilm/Disney approached him to direct Star Wars The Force Awakens. Many, many years ago, the actor/director was rumoured to be inconsideration for taking on directorial duties for Star Wars Episode VII. However, it was never really confirmed. Until now.
During a new episode of Happy Sad Confused, host Josh Horowitz asked Affleck about jobs that never ended up coming to fruition such as his standalone Batman film, Man of Steel plus Star Wars. For those unaware, the conversations would have taken place off the back of Argo which Affleck starred in and directed.
Horowitz said “Correct me if I’m wrong though. Didn’t you come close to Star Wars? Wasn’t Force Awakens like an opportunity that you passed on?” The actor confirmed that “yeah, they came to me and asked me and hey, are you interested in this?” He follows this up with insight into his thought process behind not taking it up. You can read it in full below:
“I don’t know that meant they weren’t also like talking to JJ or other people, but I talked to those folks at the time. And that was one where I just was like, again, I thought, hey, I like Star Wars and I’m a fan, but I’m not the person to direct this movie.
I just think someone else is who has more passion for this and is going to do a better job. And that’s not like some great self-sacrificing thing because I thought, I don’t know, that I can make a great version of Star Wars or reinvent this. A lot of challenges to reinventing that.
In fact that you’ve seen played out. It’s hasn’t been easy for them to reinvent that franchise. Some have done really well, some and you’ve got this whole fan base that’s got its own very strong opinions and yeah, it just was one that like like plenty of scripts that I’ve gotten as a director. I’ve certainly got better scripts as a as a director than as an actor that I’ve turned down, but I just thought like, you know what, this this would be… I don’t think I can do it as well as somebody else, and I don’t want to direct something that I don’t feel like I have a chance to be really really proud of.”
Would you have liked to have seen Affleck’s take on Star Wars? Let us know down in the comments section below.
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