Hollywood’s favorite duo Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are reuniting for a new project.
It was announced on Thursday, January 25, that the pair are gearing up for an upcoming crime thriller that will premiere on Netflix titled Animals. Affleck, 51, will direct, while Damon, 53, is set to star.
Written by Connor McIntyre with revisions by Billy Ray, the story will follow a mayoral candidate and his wife after their son is kidnapped. The couple must find a way to save their child while surrounded by enemies — political and otherwise.
The movie, which was initially pitched as The Animals of Los Angeles and Be Gentlemen before settling on The Animals, could begin shooting in Los Angeles as early as March, per The Hollywood Reporter. Affleck and Damon’s production company, Artists Equity, will produce the film. Also producing are Brad Weston and Collin Creighton via MakeReady, the production, sales and distribution company formerly known as Endeavor Content, in partnership with Fifth Season.
Affleck and Damon have been best friends and collaborators for decades. The duo grew up together in Cambridge, Massachusetts, before teaming up to write the script for 1997’s Oscar-winning screenplay Good Will Hunting, where they scrounged to make ends meat before getting the film greenlit.
“We rented this house on the beach in Venice and 800 people came and stayed with us and got drunk,” Affleck said in 2011, according to Forbes. “Then we ran out of money and had to get an apartment. It was, like, everything was exciting. So we lived in Glendale and Eagle Rock and we lived in Hollywood, West Hollywood, Venice, by the Hollywood Bowl, all over the place. We’d get thrown out of some places or we’d have to upgrade or downgrade depending on who had money.”
The film starred Damon as Will Hunting, a boy with a genius-level IQ choosing to work as a janitor at MIT, while Affleck appeared as well-intentioned best friend Chuckie. The movie received nine Oscar nominations in 1998, including Best Picture and Best Director. At the time, the film won Best Supporting Actor for Robin Williams and Best Original Screenplay for Affleck and Damon.
The pair have since teamed up on several other projects like School Ties, The Battle of Shaker Heights, The Last Duel and Field of Dreams. In 2001, they launched their HBO series Project Greenlight, an American documentary television series focusing on first-time filmmakers being given the chance to direct a feature film.
In 2022, Artists Equity, their artist-led studio that creates entrepreneurial partnerships with filmmakers to empower their creative vision, released their first film, sports drama Air, which Affleck starred in and directed.
“This friendship has been essential and defining and so important to me in my life,” Affleck told Damon in a January 2022 joint Entertainment Weekly interview. “There were a few critical times, which are private and I don’t want to share, but where your support was so profoundly meaningful to me that I don’t think I would’ve been able to be successful without you.”
