Steven Spielberg refused to work with Ben Affleck because of pool fight on a family vacation, filmmaker claims

Mike Binder said that the “Jaws” director and the “Argo” filmmaker had a long-standing feud over an incident involving Spielberg’s son.

Mike Binder says he almost made a movie with Steven Spielberg — but claims the collaboration fell apart because of an alleged feud between the Jaws filmmaker and Ben Affleck.

Binder wrote and directed the 2006 film Man About Town, which starred Affleck as a Hollywood agent. However, the filmmaker said that he initially wrote the screenplay under the assumption that Spielberg, who was impressed with his prior film The Upside of Anger, would direct the project.

“He said, ‘We gotta do something together. I want you to write something for me,'” Binder said on Stephen Baldwin’s podcast One Bad Movie, noting that the film was partially inspired by a home invasion scare at Spielberg’s house. “At the time, we both lived up in the Palisades, and we were talking about power and struggles, and also he was going through a thing where there was a guy who broke into his house late at night, and was gonna, they found notes. The guy was gonna electrocute Steven, beat him up, and it was just horrible.”

Binder said that the film was set to enter production at Spielberg’s studio, DreamWorks, with the E.T. filmmaker at the helm. However, the screenwriter said that Spielberg eventually backed out of directing, but wanted to keep the movie at DreamWorks with Binder as director. Binder then met Affleck, who wanted to work with him after seeing The Upside of Anger.

“We make a deal that he’s gonna do it, we shake hands, he’ll do it,” Binder said of meeting with Affleck to make Man About Town.

However, Spielberg said that he wouldn’t allow Affleck to be hired for the film. “I call Steven, Steven says, ‘No. Can’t do it with him. We just bombed with a movie with him, he’s got that whole J-Lo thing going on now, and I have other problems with him,'” Binder claimed. 

Binder said that Spielberg accused Affleck of fighting with his son on a family vacation while the Daredevil star was dating the filmmaker’s goddaughter, Gwyneth Paltrow. “‘My son was a little boy, he was playing in the pool, and he got out of the pool, and Ben came in fully dressed, and my son pushed Ben into the pool,'” he recalled Spielberg telling him. “‘And Ben got really mad at him, and he came out of the pool and picked him up and threw him back into the pool, and made my son cry.'”

Binder didn’t understand the relevance of the anecdote. “I said, ‘Okay, what does this have to do with anything?'” he recalled. “He says, ‘I just don’t like to work with him. Plus his last two movies bombed. Find somebody else. Anyone but him. He’s cold as hell.’ I said, ‘Okay, Steven.'”

Binder acquiesced and told Affleck’s agents the bad news — and the Good Will Hunting star immediately knew what happened. “Ben calls me up, he says, ‘Did Steven Spielberg tell you I threw his kid in the water? Is that what happened? Is that why I’m not on your movie?'” Binder remembered. “I said, ‘No, he didn’t say—’ ‘Yes he did! He told you I threw his kid in the water. That’s why I’m not on the movie.'”

The filmmaker said that he still wanted to use Affleck in the lead role, so he told Spielberg his intentions, and the Raiders of the Lost Ark director didn’t resist — but DreamWorks dropped the project the following day, and Binder took the project to a different distributor.

Binder admitted that the movie was “s—ty” under his direction, which led to its distributor, Lionsgate, sending the movie directly to DVD, but he maintained that Affleck gave a quality performance.

The filmmaker said that several years later, he watched Affleck win the Oscar for Best Picture for Argo at the 2013 Academy Awards. “He beats Spielberg [for Lincoln], and he’s at the Academy Awards, and they’re hugging. And I text him, I’m watching on the air, I go, ‘Ben, tonight you could throw Spielberg’s whole family in the pool and get away with it.’ About an hour later, the phone rings, it’s Affleck at the Academy [Awards]. He goes, ‘That made me laugh so f—in’ hard.'”

Binder reflected on his takeaways from the saga. “I love both these guys, and they’re both smarter than me, but they both kinda acted like idiots, and so did I,” he said. “They were great guys, but at the same time, assholes. They were like everybody else. Steven Spielberg is a genius and a great guy, but he can be an asshole. And Ben Affleck is a great guy, and he can be a bigger asshole. But by the same token, both of ’em can go, ‘Yeah, I can be an asshole.'”

Representatives for Spielberg and Affleck did not immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly‘s requests for comment.