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Seminal filmmaker Steven Spielberg refused to work with Ben Affleck after a personal disagreement. Spielberg and Affleck faced off against each other at the 85th Academy Awards in February 2013. Spielberg was nominated for Lincoln, although Affleck came away with the coveted Best Picture victory for directing and producing the political thriller Argo.
Almost a decade earlier, Affleck starred in the dramedy Man About Town from writer-director Mike Binder. The film, which saw Affleck playing a Hollywood talent agent, might have led to a more high-profile collaboration. But, according to new recollections from Binder, that was halted because of Spielberg’s past with Affleck.
During a recent interview on the One Bad Movie Podcast hosted by Stephen Baldwin (via Entertainment Weekly), Binder recalled how plans to make a movie with Spielberg fell apart because of a feud between Affleck and Spielberg. In the quote below, Binder recalls how Spielberg initially blamed his reluctance to work with Affleck on the actor’s box office woes at the time and what was then his tabloid fodder relationship with Jennifer Lopez:
We make a deal that he’s gonna do it, we shake hands, he’ll do it,.I call Steven, Steven says, ‘No. Can’t do it with him. We just bombed with a movie with him, he’s got that whole J-Lo thing going on now, and I have other problems with him.
As Binder explains it, Spielberg accused Affleck of fighting with his son while they were on vacation. This was during the time when Affleck was dating Spielberg’s goddaughter, Gwyneth Paltrow. Binder recalls Spielberg telling him:
‘My son was a little boy, he was playing in the pool, and he got out of the pool, and Ben came in fully dressed, and my son pushed Ben into the pool.’And Ben got really mad at him, and he came out of the pool and picked him up and threw him back into the pool, and made my son cry.’
I said, ‘Okay, what does this have to do with anything?’ He says, ‘I just don’t like to work with him. Plus his last two movies bombed. Find somebody else. Anyone but him. He’s cold as hell.’ I said, ‘Okay, Steven.'”
Binder concludes his story by talking about how Affleck and Spielberg eventually buried the hatchet at the Academy Awards, when Affleck won for Argo:
He beats Spielberg [for Lincoln], and he’s at the Academy Awards, and they’re hugging. And I text him, I’m watching on the air, I go, ‘Ben, tonight you could throw Spielberg’s whole family in the pool and get away with it.’ About an hour later, the phone rings, it’s Affleck at the Academy [Awards]. He goes, ‘That made me laugh so f—in’ hard.’
I love both these guys, and they’re both smarter than me, but they both kinda acted like idiots, and so did I. They were great guys, but at the same time, assholes. They were like everybody else. Steven Spielberg is a genius and a great guy, but he can be an asshole. And Ben Affleck is a great guy, and he can be a bigger asshole. But by the same token, both of ’em can go, ‘Yeah, I can be an asshole.'”
