For while it seemed as though actor Ben Affleck might only choose to work for director Ben Affleck, perhaps the only filmmaker who truly understands Ben Affleck. (“We just have a shorthand,” Ben Affleck said of Ben Affleck, as Ben Affleck made the subtle gesture that Ben Affleck alone recognizes as “Time to take your shirt off, Ben Affleck.”) But according to The Wrap, Affleck is circling the lead role in Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn’s bestseller that’s currently being adapted by David Fincher, who is famously not Ben Affleck.
The project’s been development for some time under producer Reese Witherspoon, though—exercising her right as an American—she has chosen to not star in the lead. Instead, Charlize Theron, Natalie Portman, and Emily Blunt are all in talks for that, illustrating the rather broad interpretation of the character Fincher is working with. And despite being older than all of those candidates—and thus changing the dynamic in the book—Affleck would play the husband who may or may not know what happened to his missing wife, because isn’t that always the way with husbands? It’s like they can’t find anything for themselves, whether it’s their socks or their wives they may have murdered. Right, possibly dead ladies?