Whedon got the project over the finish line. But the quippy style he had pioneered with Buffy and with the first two Avengers film landed flat. There was a clear clash between the tone the two directors had envisaged (Snyder would revisit Justice League with last year’s doom-laden four-hour Snyder Cut). 

Several of the stars openly rebelled against Whedon. Gal Gadot refused to do a scene in which the Flash lands suggestively on her (a body double was utilised instead). And in July 2020 Ray Fisher, who played Cyborg, accused Whedon of  “gross, abusive, unprofessional, and completely unacceptable” behaviour towards cast and crew. Following in internal investigation Warner Brothers said “remedial action” had been taken.

Affleck has kept his own counsel on Whedon. But his feelings about Justice League become clear when he and Henry Cavill doubled up for an interview to promote the film. As the chipper Cavill chimed away, Affleck stared into space. Later, someone paired his crest-fallen body language with Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence. Thus was born the Sad Affleck meme.

Soon there was a Sad Affleck for every season. There was that image of Affleck looking despondent while smoking. In another he sat in his car, vaping with eyes shut. 

“Affleck’s was the kind of middle-aged-white-male sadness that the Internet loves to mock—a mocking that depends, simultaneously, on a complete rejection of this sadness, as well as a hedging identification with it,” wrote the New Yorker’s Naomi Fry. “These depressed-Affleck images can arouse both amusement and a sense of poignancy, a touch of Schadenfreude as well as something like sympathy.”