What does Ben Affleck have to do to become one of Netflix’s most special and beloved filmmakers?

It feels like Ben Affleck has been really busy as a director, but Air, the last film he directed, came out in 2023. How has it already been three years since the time Ben Affleck made a biopic for a shoe?

In other areas, he has stayed busy, acting in The Rip earlier this year, and The Accountant 2 last year, and divorcing JLo the year before that, so it’s not like we don’t see plenty of Ben Affleck, generally, maybe that’s why I have an impression of him directing more than he actually does. He’s just around so much in pop culture, and he does make those longform commercials for Dunkin, of course, but really, directing two features with three years between them is a perfectly reasonable timeline.

Anyway, Director Affleck is back with Animals, an upcoming thriller for Netflix. Affleck’s company with Matt Damon, Artists Equity, inked a deal with Netflix earlier this year following the success of The Rip, and Animals is the first film released under that new deal, though it would have been made beforehand. (Netflix also bought Ben Affleck’s AI company, so Netflix just loves to be in the business of Ben Affleck, I guess.)

Animals is directed by Affleck, and he also stars in the film as a mayoral candidate whose son is kidnapped. Kerry Washington co-stars as his wife, and the film also stars Gillian Anderson and Steven Yeun. When I tell you I gasped when Gillian Anderson was revealed! Somehow, Ben Affleck is still underrated as a director, but that man knows how to do a great reveal shot. Look at it! The tracking from the back, the cut to the face! He KNOWS you’re going to gasp when you see Gillian Anderson!

There’s no dialogue in the teaser, it’s all just nerves and tense piano music, but the log line reveals that Affleck’s character has sunk all his money into his campaign, so he and his wife must “get their hands dirty” to save their child. This sounds a bit like Highest 2 Lowest, Spike Lee’s adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low, which is itself an adaptation of Ed McBain’s novel King’s Ransom. Animals, however, is credited as an original script by Connor O. McIntyre, Billy Ray (who adapted The Hunger Games and wrote Captain Phillips and Richard Jewell), and Ben Affleck.

It looks tense and upsetting, and Affleck is a great director of action. I’m sure Animals will be fine, at the very least. Notably, however, this is not getting one of Netflix’s new exclusive theatrical windows. They just announced an animated adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (with Taika Waititi voicing Willy Wonka) will get a six-week exclusive theatrical run during the 2027 holiday season. This is now the third film Netflix has set an exclusive theatrical window of more than four weeks for, the other two being Greta Gerwig’s Narnia movie, and David Fincher’s Tarantino sequel, the still-untitled Cliff Booth movie starring Brad Pitt, which is taking over Gerwig’s old spot during the 2026 holidays.

So, Netflix is big on Ben Affleck Business, but not big enough to give him a significant theatrical release. Based on the wording in the Animals teaser (“in select theaters”), and that it is premiering day-and-date on Netflix, I suspect Animals will play in a few hundred theaters for a couple of weeks, enough to qualify for Oscar consideration, even though it does not look like an Oscar movie. I wonder what kind of movie Affleck would have to direct for Netflix to go big on a theatrical release for him?

Narnia and Wonka are, notably, family-friendly films, and those are super easy to sell to parents desperate to distract their kids for a couple hours, they also both have franchise potential. The Cliff Booth movie is the sequel to a popular Tarantino film and stars Brad Pitt. Ben Affleck is a proper movie star and an Oscar-winning filmmaker. What does he have to do to become one of Netflix’s most special and beloved filmmakers? Or was buying his AI company for over half a billion dollars enough?