“I would not want to be him right now”: the role Josh Brolin was glad to miss out on
Whether he’s hunting for One-Eyed Willy’s buried treasure or running from Anton Chigurh in the Texas desert, Josh Brolin is usually a sign of quality.
After revitalising his career in the mid-2000s, Brolin is now one of Hollywood’s most recognisable faces and has proven himself capable in multiple genres. Just look at his output in 2025, which ranges from Weapons to The Running Man to the latest instalment of the Knives Out franchise.
Like most big names in modern Hollywood, Brolin has been drawn in by the inescapable pull of the superhero movie. His most famous role in this realm is that of Thanos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He lent his weighty voice to the purple psychopath, serving as the ultimate villain in one of cinema’s greatest sagas. It doesn’t stop there, though. He played Cable, another legendary Marvel character, in Deadpool 2 and even crossed the line to play DC’s Jonah Hex in the film of the same name, although he wishes he hadn’t.
If things had gone differently, however, Brolin could have played a very different DC character; one that a hell of a lot more people know than Jonah Hex. In the early 2010s, rumours began to swirl that the second-generation star had been approached by Zack Snyder to play Batman as part of the DC Extended Universe (DCEU).
Speaking to HuffPost, Brolin confirmed that this was true. “I didn’t have conversations about it, but Zack, that was part of his idea,” he revealed. “It just didn’t turn out. It’s OK. It is OK. You know, another scenario might have worked better, but I’m happy for Ben.”
The ‘Ben’ Brolin is referring to is, of course, Ben Affleck. The Oscar winner stepped into the beefy, childhood trauma-suffering shoes of Bruce Wayne to go head-to-head with Henry Cavill’s Superman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, reprising the role three times in total. Unfortunately for ‘Batfleck’, the public didn’t take to his interpretation of the ‘Caped Crusader’. The entire DCEU project collapsed spectacularly under itself, and Affleck didn’t even get his own movie. Although given how much he hated wearing the Batsuit, he was probably quite pleased about that.
One of the things that helped Brolin accept that he’d missed out on Batman was the toxic response Affleck’s portrayal of the character received online. “I’ve never seen such a global reaction in my life,” he said.
Adding, “I would not want to be him right now. The reaction becomes so personal. It’s like, ‘Fuck this guy, I wish he was dead.’ And you’re like, ‘What? Dude, seriously? This guy is just working like you are.”
Unfortunately, the relationship between actors and so-called ‘fans’ online has only gotten worse in the years since Affleck became Batman. In an increasingly polarised world, people begin to take even the smallest issues incredibly seriously. If the expected backlash from the public is going to put people off certain roles, then the movie industry is in big trouble.
