Ben Affleck’s Batmobile in ‘Batman vs. Superman’ Was Made Just For Him
Every Batman needs a Batmobile. And, just like how each Batman era has been different than the others, each Batmobile has to be different as well. So, when they were making Justice League, they also had to get a car that Batman would drive.
Not only that, but the car actually had to be fully functional as well. Here’s a look at how Warner Bros. teamed up with Mercedes-Benz to design Ben Affleck’s Batmobile.
A brand-new concept car
In Justice League, Affleck gets to play Bruce Wayne, the rich businessman alter-ego of Batman, more than he gets to play Batman himself. Wayne’s goal in the movie is to gather up all of Earth’s mightiest heroes in order to, well, form the Justice League.
Wayne mostly does this by visiting the superheroes that he wants to recruit in person. But, since he’s a rich businessman, he needs a fancy car to take him to those places.
That’s where this brand-new Batmobile, designed by Warner Bros. and Mercedes-Benz, comes in, according to Architectural Digest. As part of a new collaboration between the two companies, they both had to design a new Batmobile for Affleck to drive around in.
One problem though, it wasn’t a real car. Like Architectural Digest mentioned, the car that the designers ultimately chose was the Mercedes-Benz AMG Vision Gran Turismo, a car that Mercedes-Benz had made for a popular video game, Gran Turismo 6.
Architectural Digest said that this video game car was so popular that Mercedes-Benz made a full-sized model for the 2013 L.A. Auto Show. It was just a model though, it couldn’t actually do anything.
Modified for Ben Affleck
So, when the designers got to work, they had a big job ahead of them. Not only did they have to make the car fully functional for the movie, but they also had to make the car fit for Affleck. As Architectural Digest mentioned, Affleck is a tall man, as he’s about 6-feet 4-inches tall. As a result, the design team actually had to make the car 10% bigger so that Affleck could fit in the car.
That said, while the Mercedes-Benz AMG Vision Gran Turismo looks really cool, fans unfortunately didn’t think the same about Affleck’s Batman. In part due to the movies being hated by fans, as well as due to some personal issues that Affleck was going through, Affleck ultimately left the role of Batman.
Instead, for the new Batman movie, Batman will be played by Robert Pattinson instead. And, with a new Batman, Warner Bros. can make improvements on the character as well as on his car.
The next Batman and Batmobile
The new Batman movie is currently in production, with Matt Reeves on the director’s chair and a brand-new cast who will support Pattinson’s Batman. While Reeves and Pattinson have given hints about how their new Batman will be different from others, it’s all hearsay until audiences get to actually watch the movie for themselves.
That said, fans had many issues with how Warner Bros. decided to portray Affleck’s Batman. For example, one of the biggest complaints from Batman fans was the fact that Affleck’s Batman seemed to break Batman’s rule about not killing anyone.
In the Affleck era, Batman did plenty of killing. An easy way for Pattinson’s Batman to fix this issue is to just not kill anyone.
But, just based on the pictures that Reeves has shared on social media, there will be plenty of other differences too. For example, Pattinson’s Batmobile looks more like an old muscle car than a luxurious Mercedes-Benz. Perhaps this means that Pattinson’s Batman is less refined and high-class than Affleck’s Batman was.
