What to Know
Apparently, Steven Spielberg really held a grudge after a pool fight involving Ben Affleck. According to director Mike Binder, Steven has refused to work with Ben because of the incident, and even backed out of a project in which the actor was cast. The story came up during an episode of Stephen Baldwin’s podcast One Bad Movie. When talking about his 2006 movie Man About Town, Mike claimed that Steven, 79, said he would not work on the movie if Ben was involved, but his reason sounded so far-fetched and “petty” that a Redditor called it “the most 1 percent story ever.”
People couldn’t really relate to Steven.
According to Mike, Steven’s beef with Ben was largely due to a pool incident in which one of his kids pushed Ben into a pool. In response, Ben threw the child back in the pool — and Steven could not get over this. At the time, in the 1990s, Ben was dating Gwyneth Paltrow and joined her on a Spielberg family vacation. Mike said Steven explained the situation like this: “Ben came in fully dressed and my son pushed Ben into the pool, and Ben got really mad at him, and he came out of the pool and he picked him up and threw him back into the pool and made my son cry.”
On Reddit, some people actually sided with Ben and failed to understand Steven’s apparent grudge. One person wrote, “Maybe your kid shouldn’t be pushing people into the pool,” while another said, “I’m with Ben on this one.”
Others argued that Ben maybe shouldn’t have thrown the kid into a pool — but what exactly does that have to do with making a movie? Mike asked Steven the same question, to which Steven allegedly responded with, “I just don’t like to work with him. Plus his last two movies bombed. Find somebody else. Anyone but him.”
Ben seemed to know exactly what the whole thing was about.
Mike said that he called Ben’s agent about the movie. But immediately, Ben suspected that Steven refused to work with him because of the pool incident. “I say, ‘Okay Steven,'” Mike explained. “So I call Ben’s agent and I say, ‘It’s not going to work.’ Ben calls me up and he goes, ‘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?'”
Later, Mike tried to talk to Steven again and convince him to work with Ben, but shortly after that, Steven allegedly backed out. And if you’re wondering how this one incident ended up leading to much drama between the two men, Mike suggested it’s actually quite simple.
“That was like my one moment of dealing with those super hotshots and they were, like, great guys yet at the same time a——s. They were like everybody else,” he said. “Steven Spielberg is a genius and a great guy, but he can be an a——, and Ben Affleck is a great guy, and he can be a bigger a——.”
