Summary
Ben Affleck‘s career includes acting, screenwriting, and directing, but he hasn’t always made the best choices in roles, and he amazingly survived after making three career-ending movies that all came out the same year. With over 50 movies in his filmography, Affleck’s career is spread over 30 years and includes many ups and downs. However, he managed to recover after every poor one and has constantly improved himself, both as an actor and as a director.
Ben Affleck started his acting career when he was very young, with several television appearances and small roles in movies. His first leading role was in 1995’s Glory Daze, but it was winning his first Oscar for Best Screenplay for Good Will Hunting, which Affleck wrote with Matt Damon, that put him on the map. He went on to star in movies across many genres, and even pivoted to directing, with his movies receiving critical and commercial success. Even amid starring in some of his best movies, Ben Affleck’s career struggled with several career-ending movies.
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Gigli, Daredevil, & Paycheck All Came Out In 2003
They Are Some of Affleck’s Worst-Rated Films
Ben Affleck’s career almost ended when he made a series of movies that all came out in 2003: Gigli, Daredevil, and Paycheck. Ben Affleck won Worst Actor at the 2004 Golden Raspberry Awards for those three career-ending movies and Gigli, an infamous box office bomb, was nominated for the Worst Picture of the Decade at the Golden Raspberry Awards. Gigli was intended to be a dark mob movie, but given Afleck and his then-fiancée Jennifer Lopez’s romance, it was turned into a romantic comedy. The movie had a stellar cast, including Al Pacino and Christopher Walken, with Martin Brest at the helm, yet it grossed $7.2 million on a $75.6 million budget.
In 2003, he was also the lead star of John Woo’s film, Paycheck, co-starring with Uma Thurman. Despite the poor reviews, unlike Gigli, Paycheck was a commercial success, grossing $117.2 million on a $60 million budget, causing Woo to stop directing for 20 years. Superhero movies became popular in the early 2000s, and Marvel made the 2003 Daredevil movie starring Ben Affleck as Matt Murdock and Jennifer Garner as Elektra. The 2003 film was the biggest failure for Affleck and Garner in terms of major studio releases, almost ending both their careers. Although Jennifer Garner’s career never recovered, Affleck managed to get his career back on track and soared.
How Ben Affleck’s Career Bounced Back After His Biggest Flops
Switching To Directing Movies Saved His Career
Ben Affleck had a lot of ups and downs in his career, but in 2007, he started directing films, which saved his career. His first directed film was Gone Baby Gone, and almost all the movies he’s directed were well-received, except Live By Night, and his film, Argo, won Best Motion Picture of the Year in 2013. One of his latest films, Air, received critical acclaim and became Affleck’s highest-scoring movie on Rotten Tomatoes as a director, and one of his highest-scoring movies as an actor.
His acting roles also recovered after the acting choices he made in 2003 with Gigli, Paycheck, and Daredevil. Ben Affleck went on to lead several major films, like Gone Girl, The Last Duel, and The Tender Bar. Affleck even became Bruce Wayne/ Batman in several films in the DC Extended Universe, including Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad (in a cameo appearance), Justice League, Zack Snyder’s Justice League, and The Flash. Although he might have a future in the DCEU anymore, Ben Affleck‘s career continues to be on the right track.
These films could’ve ended Ben Affleck’s career. Read More