"The World's Greatest Detective" would not pass judgment this prematurely

This Ben Affleck Batman casting backlash has been a trip back to the summer of 2006 when news broke that Christopher Nolan had cast the late Heath Ledger as the Joker. Internet fanboys/hipsters erupted in vitriolic fury and vowed to boycott the film. After seeing Ledger's jaw-dropping performance in The Dark Knight, you'd think their mouths would still be too stuffed full of crow to spew this sort of vicious, premature inanity all over again. Most of them went bananas when Nolan cast Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle in 2010 and they're still downing humble pie over that one, too.

Affleck has really grown as an actor and filmmaker over the past decade. Daredevil—a performance I personally feel is unfairly derided due to the film's poor writing, editing, and direction—and the infamous Gigli were released ten years ago! Gone Baby Gone, The Town and Argo have happened since then. Also, WB and Snyder clearly loved what they heard in their meeting with Affleck and picked him for a reason. The casting was brilliant across the board in Man of Steel, so we have every reason to believe that same level of discernment was used to determine who would follow in Bale's footsteps to play the Batman in the Man of Steel sequel.

Look, fellow Batman fans: we are spoiled rotten. We have far and away the three greatest superhero films committed to film in Nolan's masterful Dark Knight Trilogy. Christian Bale has given us hands down the greatest superhero performance in the history of the genre. We've seen the best allies (Caine, Oldman, Freeman, Gyllenhaal, Hathaway, Gordon-Levitt) and the best villians (Ledger, Neeson, Eckhart, Hardy, Murphy, Cotillard, Wilkinson). Pfister's cinematography... Zimmer and Newton Howard's score... we could go on and on. Nothing that happens going forward can alter those wonderful films or their legacy. Why not give Affleck a chance and see what he brings to the table? Anything that happens from here on out is simply icing on the cake. "Why so serious?" indeed.