It’s no secret that Ben Affleck is a fan of superheroes. But at one point, Affleck took his superhero fandom to another level by building a Bat Cave-like entrance in his house. And the secret hideaway was discovered by none other than Kevin Smith himself.
How Kevin Smith found Ben Affleck’s Bat Cave entrance
Kevin Smith has always spoken up about how much of a fan Ben Affleck is of the Batman character. He even claimed that his decision to play Daredevil was inspired by his passion for the caped crusader.
“This dude has loved batman going as far back as I can remember,” Smith said on the Hollywood Babylon podcast (via Comic Book). “He only did f****** Daredevil because he loved Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns. He’s like, ‘They’re never going to make another Batman, because this was after Batman had nipples and s*** like that. So he was like, ‘Daredevil’s cool, and Miller wrote him as well.’ So he liked the character, but it was always rooted in Batman.”
But Smith discovered how deep of a Batman fan Affleck was when he bought the Justice League star’s house.
“I live in Affleck’s old house, and he built a panic room and the entrance was built to look like a Batcave entrance. It’s a bookcase that you click a button and the bookcase slides back. He’s the only guy I know that would go to do something like that,” Smith once told Entertainment Weekly.
As Smith also revealed, building the Batcave entrance wasn’t cheap.
“I asked him, ‘What did that cost to do?’ He was like, ’50 thousand bucks.’ I was like, ‘Worth every f****** penny, man.’ That’s amazing! If you’re going to have Pearl Harbor, Armageddon type money, build a f****** Batcave entrance in your house. So he’s always loved the character,” he continued.
Why Kevin Smith was surprised Ben Affleck wanted to be Batman
Like many, Kevin Smith also didn’t expect the news of Ben Affleck being cast as Batman in Zack Snyder’s Batman V Superman. Even though Smith asserted that Affleck was a fan of the character, he figured his career was going in another direction.
“It caught me off guard because I too thought he was on this different path. He fought his way back from wherever he was and is now at the top of the mountain. I never would’ve guessed this move. Why wouldn’t he just be like, ‘Argo, f**** yourself,’ to any superhero movie at this point,” Smith thought.
But soon afterward Smith gave his own theory on the matter.
“And then I realized why: If you ask an 8-year-old, ‘Hey, who’s Robert Downey Jr.?’ they go ‘Iron Man!’ If you ask an 8-year-old, ‘Hey, who’s Ben Affleck?’ they look at you blankly. Now, at the end of the day, when he plays Batman, he’ll have career vitality. He’ll have bought himself another 10 years as an actor, not just as a director,” Smith realized.
Kevin Smith once wrote a Superman script for Ben Affleck in mind
If Smith had it his way, Affleck might have been Superman before he was Batman. According to Yahoo, Smith explained that he was writing a Superman script earlier in his career. Ben Affleck was the only person that came to mind to portray the Man of Tomorrow.
“I was writing it for Affleck,” Smith said. “Ben was heating up. Like he was there. I think he’d been hired for Armageddon.… Affleck, he’s a f**king giant, like he’s built like a superhero, built like a giant action figure, particularly with the height. And then he puts on the muscles there too. So in my head and heart, it was always Ben and Michael Rooker, which was a weird Mallrats reunion.”
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