Ben Affleck's directing career - up until now - has been marked with big successes.
Gone Baby Gone was a stunning debut and showed a real, innate talent for behind-the-camera work whilst The Town was a grungy version of Michael Mann's Heat. Argo, for all the backlash against it, had some moments of real tension and terror with some excellent performances.
Live By Night, sadly, was a bland enough affair and that's being borne out in the box office results. According to Variety, Live By Night made a measly $16,500,000 globally and the majority of that came from the US box office. With a production budget of $65 million and a promotional and distributional budget expected to be around the $10 million mark, Warner Bros. is now looking at losses of anything up to $75 million on the film.
This, however, won't affect Affleck's next directing assignment - The Batman - as Warner Bros. have him locked in for it and fans have been eagerly awaiting a start date for the film. In fact, it's so much so that Affleck has admitted in interviews that he's pissed off with people hassling him over the film.
The Batman is scheduled for a late 2018 release.
Via Variety