Jeremy Irons: ‘The Batman’ filming next year
Ben Affleck’s The Batman will start shooting next summer, says co-star Jeremy Irons, talking about reprising his Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League roles as Bruce Wayne’s faithful butler, Alfred Pennyworth.
“Similar, but then, of course, Ben’s going to make a Batman film next summer,” the stars said when asked if Alfred will have more screen time.
“He promises me there’s going to be a bit more of Alfred in that. In the Justice League we have seven major lead characters and I’m the butler to one of them. It’s clear I will not be dominating that film.”
Irons admits he doesn’t enjoy shooting huge movies as much as smaller films because he spends most of his time doing publicity or waiting around.
“Less so, because they’re so slow. There’s a lot of waiting around and then a huge amount of publicity. One spends 70% of the time doing publicity, 10 per cent of the time filming, and 20 per cent of the time waiting. I love working with Ben [Affleck] and Zack Snyder. They’ve been fun.”
Irons admits he wasn’t bothered by some of the harsh Batman v Superman reviews and was just pleased to see plenty of people turned up to watch the movie.
“I was very pleased by the numbers. Zack seems to get a hard time from the press, which is strange. I don’t know if it has to do with the sort of secrecy that surrounds the making of it all. But the audience liked it, which in the end is all that matters.”
Little is known about The Batman, but joining Affleck and Irons is JK Simmons as Jim Gordon with Joe Manganiello cast as Deathstroke aka Slade Wilson.
On Deathstroke, Affleck told Collider: “He’s a great villain because—I just had an instinctive feeling that he would match up with him well. You know, I’m a big admirer of that character as well, especially in the New 52 the way that they did Deathstroke, and I thought that it could work.”