They’re both Hollywood heavyweights, but Ben Affleck and Steven Spielberg have never made a movie together — and it turns out there might be a reason for that.
Appearing on a recent episode of the One Bad Movie podcast with Stephen Baldwin, writer and director Mike Binder recalled how he and Steven Spielberg had initially worked together on the script for his 2006 movie, Man About Town. The film, about a Hollywood agent whose life begins to unravel, was originally set to be made at DreamWorks with Steven directing; however, Mike wound up taking the movie to Lionsgate and directing it himself after Steven apparently raised major concerns about casting Ben Affleck as the lead.
“We make a deal, he’s gonna do it. We shake hands,” Mike said of casting Ben. “I call Steven, Steven says, ‘No. You 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.’”
Those “other problems” apparently had to do with Ben’s on-and-off relationship with Gwyneth Paltrow between 1997 and 2000, around the time that Ben shot to fame with Good Will Hunting. Gwyneth, in case you didn’t know, is Steven’s goddaughter, and the two are very close.
Recalling the awkward conversation, Mike claimed that Steven told him about a time when his family was vacationing with Ben and Gwyneth in Spain, and Ben apparently upset one of his young sons. “My son was a little boy, 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,” Steven purportedly said. “Ben got really mad at him, and he came out of the pool, and he picked him up, and he threw him back into the pool, and made my son cry.”
Mike said he was a little confused by the anecdote and asked Steven, “What does this have to do with anything?” To which the iconic filmmaker apparently responded: “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.” Mike said he then informed Ben’s agent that they’d need to find someone else for the part, which prompted a call from the man himself. “Ben called me up, and he goes, ‘Did Steven Spielberg tell you I threw his kid in the water? Is that what happened? Is that why I’m not in your movie?’”
As the story goes, Mike then went back to Steven and told him he was adamant about having Ben in the role, and the next day, he received a call to say that DreamWorks was dropping the project. Mike made Man About Town with a different studio, with Ben in the lead, but when it came out in 2006, it was poorly reviewed and ultimately became yet another flop on the actor’s struggling résumé at the time.
Later in the interview, Mike claimed that Steven and Ben buried the hatchet in 2013 when Ben’s movie Argo won Best Picture at the 2013 Oscars, notably beating Steven’s Lincoln. As it would happen, there is photographic evidence of Steven and Ben shaking hands that night, and over a decade later, it seems the two directors still get along just fine. In a fairly recent interview with GQ, Ben called Steven “one of the great filmmaking architects to ever live.” We love a happy ending.
