The movie Steven Spielberg banned Ben Affleck from starring in: “Can’t do it with him”
Ben Affleck has already cast envious eyes at Matt Damon for working with Christopher Nolan on The Odyssey, and he probably feels the same way about his best friend being directed by Steven Spielberg in Saving Private Ryan, too.
While he’s worked with an impressively eclectic array of auteurs, which includes John Woo, Michael Bay, John Frankenheimer, David Fincher, Robert Rodriguez, Ridley Scott, and George Clooney, the two-time Academy Award winner has never collaborated with the single highest-grossing director in cinema history.
He almost did, until Spielberg completely vetoed his involvement. The mastermind behind Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and the Indiana Jones franchise doesn’t have a reputation for being a petty, vindictive, or mean-spirited filmmaker, but in his own way, his reasons for refusing to have Affleck as a cast member on a movie that he never even ended up shooting did sort of make sense.
In the early 2000s, actor, writer, producer, and director Mike Binder sold his screenplay, Man About Town, to DreamWorks. The story followed a Hollywood talent agent and neglectful husband who begins journaling his thoughts to cope with his wife’s extramarital affair, only for his writing to end up in the hands of a journalist who threatens to publish it and cause a personal and professional scandal.
Initially, Spielberg planned to direct, but he quickly backed out. “He called me and said, ‘I got bad news. I’m not making this movie,'” Binder explained on the One Bad Movie podcast. Apparently, Kate Capshaw had talked him out of it because “it’s too autobiographical.” The script was gaining plenty of buzz, but when Affleck signalled his interest, the three-time Oscar winner put his foot down.
“Ben Affleck comes to my editing room and watches The Upside of Anger,” Binder continued. “He says, ‘I want to do your next movie’. I told him it was at DreamWorks, and he said, ‘I want to do it’. So I called Steven, and he said, ‘No, can’t do it with him. We just bombed a movie with him. He’s got that whole JLo thing going on now, and I have other problems with him.'”
What was his problem with Affleck? If you had a thousand guesses, you’d never get it. When he was in a relationship with Spielberg’s goddaughter, Gwyneth Paltrow, the extended family went on a trip to Spain. His son pushed the actor into a swimming pool, and in response, “Ben got really mad, came out, picked up my son, and threw him back in, and made my son cry.”
For that reason, “I just don’t like to work with him. Plus, his last two movies bombed. He’s cold as hell.'”
When word reached Affleck’s ears, he confronted Binder. “Ben calls me up and says, ‘Did Steven Spielberg tell you I threw his kid in the water? Is that why I’m not on your movie?'” The short answer, according to the filmmaker, was yes. There was a reprieve, though, since DreamWorks eventually dropped Man About Town altogether, which opened the door for the Good Will Hunting alum to play the lead role.
There are innumerable reasons for why a director would refuse to work with an actor, but throwing one of their children into a swimming pool and making them cry is up there with the strangest. When Affleck won his second Oscar for Argo, what was one of the films he defeated to claim ‘Best Picture’? Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, which must have felt like a moment of karmic justice.
