Ben Affleck is making headlines today for his passionate, profanity-filled rant about the Tom Brady Deflategate scandal on Any Given Wednesday with Bill Simmons. Affleck, who grew up in Boston, is good friends with Brady and a big New England Patriots fan.
HBO put the full episode of Any Given Wednesday online, and I decided to watch the entire Affleck interview. It turns out, there was some pretty big news there! Affleck strongly implied that he turned down an offer to direct Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
“Is it true you almost directed [Star Wars: The Force Awakens]?,” Simmons asked. A rumor I hadn’t even heard of until today.
“Well I wouldn’t be able to say,” Affleck replied with a slight smile. “It wouldn’t be polite to talk about the jobs you turned down. But I did have a lot of offers.”
On Jan. 24, 2013, it was announced that J.J. Abrams would direct the new Star Wars movie, and a few months later in August it was announced that Ben Affleck was the new Batman. It’s funny how things work out sometimes.
You can check out the full Ben Affleck interview below, it starts around the 17:20 mark and he even talks a bit about Batman. The part about turning down Star Wars: The Force Awakens starts around the 20:42 mark.
