I don’t know how much pop culture news you read online everyday, but I surf a pretty healthy number of websites. And over the past few weeks, or even months at this point, I’ve started to notice a pretty troubling and hugely annoying trend: every single word out of Ben Affleck’s mouth about his upcoming Batman movie launches an avalanche of identical headlines across the Internet. If this guy’s fart sounded like a Joker laugh, we would have to head for the hills.

I could link to a bunch of the articles to prove my point, but io9 has a pretty healthy summation. Thanks io9!

It’s reached the point that I, in all honesty, just want Ben Affleck to start trolling the heck out of the Internet.

Did he know what he was signing up for?

I don’t know why Affleck is doing so much press. Is he promoting a different movie? But it seems like every single day he just happens to mention the Batman movie to somebody, and then everybody else posts huge clickbait headlines about whatever random comment he made. Is he looking forward to directing? Is he hinting that he won’t be directing? Does he have a script? What are his thoughts on the costume?

The avalanche is endless. And yeah, I understand how clickbait and Internet headlines work, and I understand that these websites need content. But jeez louise, this is getting to be a bit much. We’re still only in early pre-production, people!

I think the solution to all of this is that Affleck should just start making stuff up. He should release a press release on one day and give a release date for the movie. Then he should come out with a new one the next day saying the project has been cancelled. Then just keep talking about it like it’s back on. He should announce that Danny DeVito will be reprising his role as the Penguin, alongside Nicki Minaj as the Riddler and Matt Damon as Robin. Announce an Adam West cameo! Nothing is true; everything is permitted!

And in this way, Ben Affleck could become a pretty good Joker.

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