It’s tough being Batman.

Just ask Ben Affleck. He faced skepticism before he even put on the suit, and then got plenty of flack for his DC movies, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and especially Justice League. The negative attention was bad enough that Affleck backed out of a planned solo film for his Batman that he would have both starred in and directed.

But it wasn’t just the bad reviews that got to Affleck; he says that the actual experience of making Justice League was so miserable, it was the reason he quit The Batman. Here’s what he told The Hollywood Reporter about the situation:

But I was going to direct a Batman, and [Justice League] made me go, ‘I’m out. I never want to do any of this again. I’m not suited.’ That was the worst experience I’ve ever seen in a business which is full of some s—y experiences. It broke my heart. There was an idea of someone [Joss Whedon] coming in, like, ‘I’ll rescue you and we’ll do 60 days of shooting and I’ll write a whole thing around what you have. I’ve got the secret.’ And it wasn’t the secret. That was hard. And I started to drink too much. I was back at the hotel in London, it was either that or jump out the window. And I just thought, ‘This isn’t the life I want. My kids aren’t here. I’m miserable.’

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Affleck blamed the issues on Justice League on “production to bad decisions to horrible personal tragedy.” But he did eventually agree to shoot a few new scenes for Zack Snyder’s Justice League, which he joked he was worried about because they filmed his material in Snyder’s backyard. “And now [Zack Snyder’s Justice League] is my highest-rated movie on IMDb,” he added.

Affleck will appear as Batman in The Flash is scheduled to open in theaters on June 16. His next film as a director, AIR, which is the story of the creation of the original Air Jordan sneaker at Nike, is scheduled to open in theaters on April 5.

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