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Ben Affleck will bring his new kidnapping thriller Animals, which he directed and stars in, to Netflix next month. Entertainment Weekly recently published an exclusive interview with Affleck alongside several new images from the film, seen below.
Some viewers may remember that Affleck was not originally planning to star in Animals himself. He had cast his close friend Matt Damon in the lead role and intended for his ex-wife Jennifer Garner to play Damon’s on-screen wife. Production changes eventually left both Damon and Garner unavailable, forcing Affleck to recast the two roles.
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In his interview with Entertainment Weekly, Affleck explained why the production schedule changed in the first place. The cast was assembled and filming was only two weeks away when someone informed him that Spike Lee and Denzel Washington were working on Highest 2 Lowest, another movie involving a kidnapping.
Affleck did not want the projects to compete or for audiences to think he was deliberately making a rival version, so he abruptly shut down production. He joked that he had already endured a similar situation: his movie Armageddon was frequently compared with Deep Impact, another asteroid-disaster movie released in the same year.
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Affleck stressed that Animals was based on an original screenplay, whereas Highest 2 Lowest was a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low, giving the projects entirely different origins. He also admitted that he still has not seen Kurosawa’s film.
Even after abandoning the production, Affleck could not stop thinking about Animals. He remained deeply interested in using the story to examine the economic divide between Los Angeles’ different ethnic communities. Affleck eventually changed his mind and decided to revive the movie. By then, however, Damon had committed to The Odyssey and was no longer available to return.
Affleck responded to Damon’s departure with some characteristically friendly mockery: “Matt was unfortunately doing another lesser film, obviously, with Odyssey. He chose a smaller director and a smaller film and a smaller role for his career, and I think he’s gonna suffer for it. He’ll regret this choice.”
“A better actor had to play the part, naturally,” Affleck joked of ultimately stepping into the role himself.
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Once Affleck decided to replace Damon, however, he found himself in another awkward position: he would be playing the husband of his own ex-wife in a movie about a troubled marriage. Garner advised him that if they played a married couple together, audiences would inevitably bring their knowledge of the pair’s real-life relationship into the film, creating additional baggage.
Affleck agreed. “I would love to work with her, frankly,” he said of Garner. “She’s fabulous, and we’re really good friends, and I’m profoundly grateful to her, and we have a great thing. I still would wanna work with her in the future, but what you don’t wanna do is take the audience’s baggage and have it work against you, you know?”
Affleck nevertheless emphasized that he had genuinely wanted Garner for the role. He believed she was ideally suited to the character and that the part would allow her to demonstrate a different side of her talent—one she had not previously been given the opportunity to show in a movie. Casting her would also have made it easier for the former couple to coordinate their schedules and spend more time with their children.
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After Garner left the project, Affleck ultimately cast Kerry Washington in the role. Washington’s casting transformed the central couple into an interracial marriage, adding another layer to the multicultural social structure of Los Angeles that Affleck already wanted to examine. He consequently adjusted parts of the characters’ backstory to reflect the change.
Affleck now believes that, at least based on what he understands about the other films, Highest 2 Lowest, High and Low and Animals are sufficiently distinct from one another. His movie focuses on different themes, and he remains confident that Animals will be judged on its own merits.
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The supporting cast also includes Gillian Anderson, Steven Yeun, Adriana Paz and Ray Fisher, who previously appeared opposite Affleck as Cyborg and Batman, respectively, in Justice League. Animals will begin streaming worldwide on Netflix on October 9, with a limited North American theatrical release on the same day.
Animals was produced by Artists Equity, the company co-founded by Affleck and Damon, alongside Fifth Season and MakeReady, with both Damon and Affleck serving as producers. The original screenplay was written by Connor McIntyre before Captain Phillips screenwriter Billy Ray was brought in to rewrite it, with Affleck also contributing to the finished script. The film follows a Los Angeles mayoral candidate whose son is kidnapped. Surrounded by enemies in politics and beyond, he and his wife are forced to do whatever it takes to rescue their child.
via： Entertainment Weekly