Ben Affleck has described how his new Netflix thriller Animals was shelved, rewritten and recast before reaching the screen, in a long interview with TheWrap timed to the film’s release. Animals, his sixth feature as director, follows a Los Angeles mayoral candidate and his wife as they deal with the kidnapping of their son.
Affleck originally planned to direct without acting and had signed Matt Damon and Jennifer Garner for the leads, saying he wanted to draw out qualities in both that audiences had not yet seen. He shelved the film a few weeks before shooting after learning of Highest 2 Lowest, an Apple project with a similar plot that Spike Lee was directing with Denzel Washington. When he revived it months later, Damon had committed to The Odyssey, so Affleck took the lead role himself. Garner stepped away from playing the wife of her real-life former husband, and Kerry Washington was cast instead.
The delay also led to a deep rewrite. Affleck said the original script was a contained thriller built around twists, with characters he now regards as archetypes, such as a feckless politician and a purely virtuous wife. He reworked it to add nuance, created a role for Luis Gerardo Mendez and expanded Adriana Paz’s part, with Mendez, Paz, Washington and Steven Yeun all contributing to the writing. He held two weeks of workshops on set before filming and said the confrontations between his character and Washington’s serve as the film’s action set pieces.
Affleck said Netflix gave him almost no notes, which he found freeing but also slightly unnerving compared with the usual process in which notes are agreed and risk is shared. “Go make your movie,” he recalled being told. He added that test screenings with live audiences shape his work whatever the platform, so directing for streaming felt no different from directing for cinemas. He also explained that directing demands about a year of commitment, compared with weeks for acting, so a project has to hold his interest for that long.
Affleck founded Interpositive, an artificial intelligence company that Netflix later acquired, and its staff worked on Animals. AI trained only on the film’s own footage was used in post-production, mainly for adjustments to lighting and optics and for removing visual effects elements, in collaboration with cinematographer Robert Elswit. Affleck rejected the idea that the technology could replace filmmakers, comparing it to earlier advances such as sound, colour, LED lighting and digital photography.
