More than 50 years after the fact, Matt Damon (55 years old; Cambridge, Massachusetts) still ugly cries over the Beatles’ breakup. According to the actor, Peter Jackson’s documentary The Beatles: Get Back (2021) left him devastated when a scene featuring the band’s famous concert on the roof of its recording studio was followed by a postscript indicating that it was their final performance. An emotional Damon called up his friend Ben Affleck (53 years old, Berkeley, California). “Who cares if we oversaturate the marketplace with movies we’re both in?” Damon asked. “We’re crazy if we don’t take advantage of the fact that we are both still here and able to do this.” And in just five years, that call, and the renewed alliance to which it led, have resulted in a string of new movies. The most recent, police thriller The Rip, arrived on Netflix mid-January. The two are not only together in front of the camera — it was also created by their own production company.
The duo’s Artists Equity has been billed as an independent studio led by creatives and based on a model of equitable profit sharing among workers. In addition to their initial fee, the entire team receives an incentive based on the films’ earnings. In the case of The Rip, which won’t earn box-office returns because it went straight to a streaming catalogue, Affleck and Damon arrived at an unprecedented agreement with Netflix. The company would obtain the project for a lower price than usual, in exchange for committing to a second payment three months after its debut, subject to its performance in views, and to be split between the 1,200 people who worked on the film. “We wanted to institute fairness and address some of the real issues that are present and urgent for our business. This deal is fundamental, philosophically, to the ideas we had in starting this company,” Affleck told The New York Times.
It’s no coincidence that the test run for Artists Equity was Air (2023), which was directed by Affleck, starred Damon and explored the historic deal between Nike and Michael Jordan that changed the rules of sportswear. The basketball star became the highest-paid athlete when Nike, unable to offer more money than the powerful Adidas, proposed paying him a percentage of annual Air Jordan shoe sales. Whether Affleck and Damon will be able to set a similar precedent for film professionals remains to be seen, but the duo have also produced the Irish drama Small Things Like These (2024) with Cillian Murphy, the thriller The Accountant 2 (2025) and the new musical version of Kiss of the Spider Woman, which features Affleck’s ex-wife Jennifer Lopez in the cast.
The performers’ project has effectively put an end to their late-1990s mantra that they would avoid working together on a regular basis — except for appearances in the films of their other friend Kevin Smith — so that each could develop their own career, rather than boxing themselves in as a double act. At the time, Affleck and Damon were fresh off their Hollywood takeover, having penned the original screenplay for Good Will Hunting (1997) that won them an Oscar, and saw Damon deliver his breakout role. After the religious satire Dogma (1999), in which they played two bloodthirsty angels, Damon built a stable profile in prestige commercial film. Affleck’s career best resembled a rollercoaster, between tabloid coverage of his relationships, unfortunate entries into the world of superheroes and respected directing credits, thanks to Gone Baby Gone (2007) and Argo (2012).
Then, Ridley Scott’s period drama The Last Duel (2021) changed everything for the pair. Narrated from several points of view, the film had both actors in its cast and a script they co-wrote with Nicole Holocefner (who penned the film’s female characters, while Damon and Affleck wrote the males). Due in part to the effects of the pandemic on theater attendance, The Last Duel didn’t earn much, but it had a decisive influence on how Affleck would refocus his career after a difficult personal moment during which he checked into rehab to deal with alcoholism and gambling addiction, and dealt with disappointment over his turn as Batman (he called the filming of 2017’s Justice League his “worst experience”), accusations of sexual assault against his brother Casey, and the sentimental hits he took in his breakup with Ana de Armas. “I want to do the things that would bring me joy,” he told Entertainment Weekly. “Then we went and did Last Duel and I had fun every day on this movie.”
“The Last Duel came out and every article was like, ‘It made no money,’” Affleck said in another interview. “And I really loved the movie, and I liked what I did in it. I was disappointed more people didn’t see it, but I can’t chase what’s going to be cool. I’m happy with it. I’m not preoccupied with notions of success or failure about money or commercial success, because those things really corrupt your choices […] I think it’s a paradox that the more you focus on actually trying to do what you think is interesting and what you want to do — rather than what other people say — the better your work is and the more relaxed you get.”
If there’s one person in Hollywood who has redefined the shape of success and failure, it’s Affleck. Despite the kind of flops that can derail a career, like Gigli (2003), Daredevil (2003) and Jersey Girl (2004), he’s always bounced back, confounding attempts to define his trajectory. When Argo won the Oscar for Best Picture, he became his detractors’ laughingstock for not having been nominated for Best Director. After his reconciliation, marriage, and 2024 divorce with Jennifer Lopez, Affleck managed to emerge in public opinion as a kind of martyr. Sightings of the actor looking physically exhausted were tied by many to Lopez’s supposed hyper-sexuality (it’s rumored that she had included a clause requiring four sexual encounters a week when they signed their prenuptial agreement.)
Hollywood’s biggest bromance
In The Rip, Affleck reunites with filmmaker Joe Carnahan, with whom he worked on Smokin’ Aces (2006). The new film, in which Affleck and Damon step into the shoes of cops who find an enormous payload in a Miami home, deals with the theme of corruption, but also trust, vital to the two characters’ plans to get ahead. The fact that the roles are played by two performers known for their mutual complicity lends to the film’s believability. For Gen Z viewers, the rediscovery of the long-term friendship between the two actors has become a subject of fascination as a strong, healthy, positive bond between two men that has withstood the test of time.
Short clips from their old interviews have gone viral on social media, where the “which could mean nothing” meme was also born (product of a 2021 headline: “Matt Damon not wearing wedding ring again during another visit to Ben Affleck’s house, which could mean nothing”). Beyond movies, the actors have put their close relationship to work for the purpose of comedy. Their running gag with comedian Jimmy Kimmel has continued to morph over decades, and the host once pretended to feud with Damon, even composing a song to spite him: I’m Fucking Ben Affleck.
For Dr. Joshua Gulam, Liverpool Hope University film professor, Affleck and Damon’s decision to make movies together in middle age “is representative of the life cycle of Hollywood stars.” “They’ve entered a phase of their careers in which it’s becoming harder to get starring roles and ensemble films will probably make up the core of their work. By producing and co-starring in movies like The Rip, they combine their star power with that of younger emerging talents [they’re joined by Teyana Taylor, currently in the running for an Oscar for One Battle After Another, Sasha Calle, and Steven Yeun] to create a more attractive and commercial package. So, though these recent collaborations reflect the lasting friendship between Affleck and Damon, it also makes sense from a professional point of view, especially at a moment in which studios are hesitant to back original projects that are not part of a franchise,” Gulam tells EL PAÍS.
In 2019, Gulam published an article analyzing the way the two actors utilize their image in the context of his investigation of celebrity humanitarian causes. According to the academic, though the performers have supported different campaigns (Damon is the co-founder of Water.org, which fights for water access and quality in developing countries, while Affleck started a non-profit in support of the people of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo), they do stand out in certain ways. “In the period prior to 9/11, along with others like George Clooney, they formed part of a wave of high-profile progressive activism that ranged from criticism of the Bush administration to humanitarian efforts in the Global South. What’s interesting is how Damon in particular has been able to place that kind of activism within blockbuster films like the Bourne saga (2002-2016), which posited more or less explicit questions regarding governmental corruption and citizen surveillance.” Interestingly, in the article, Gulam cites a study on Damon’s cross-party appeal that found that the Bourne films were more popular with Republican audiences, despite the actor being a Democrat.
Damon also narrated the Oscar-winning documentary Inside Job, which presented the case for U.S. financial deregulation having led to the Great Recession. In the context of today’s film industry, after the actors’ and writers’ strikes, and with the change in consumption habits caused by streaming platforms, in addition to the threat of artificial intelligence, is Artists Equity another form of activism? “Yes, Artists Equity seems to have emerged at a particularly opportune moment,” says Gulam. “The 2023 strikes placed labor rights and fair pay at the center of debates in Hollywood and other places. By creating Artists Equity, Affleck and Damon have situated themselves at the heart of those debates, which maintains their status as influential voices in the industry.”
Another recurrent theme in the films of both stars has been that of talent and learning to wield it, even in action movies like the Bourne saga and The Accountant. The two have been childhood friends since the Affleck family moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Damon also grew up, and the town was the setting of Good Will Hunting. That film explored the mystery surrounding a lackadaisical young genius uninterested in exploiting his gifts, who finds an unexpected soulmate in an unorthodox psychologist (played by Robin Williams). For the protagonist, who is wracked by a fear of abandonment, the dilemma lies in triumphing alone or living humble and happy with his people. Nearly 30 years after that hit movie, its script’s authors have come to the conclusion that there’s no need to choose.
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