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Ben Affleck and Matt Damon team up once again for “Animals,” a new crime thriller that Netflix has just acquired. Affleck will direct, with Damon starring, from a script by Connor McIntyre and Billy Ray.
Affleck will remain behind the camera on “Animals,” unlike his previous collaboration with Damon, Amazon Studios’ “Air,” in which Damon played Nike executive Sonny Vaccaro alongside Affleck in a supporting role as the founder. by Nike, Phil Knight. Like “Air,” Affleck and Damon are producing the project with Dani Bernfeld through their company Artists Equity, which they founded in 2022 with the intention of sharing profits not only with their fellow actors, but also with the bass team. level.
Plot details are scarce for “Animals,” but the story will center on a kidnapping.
Affleck and Damon became friends in high school and collaborated as screenwriters on the 1997 indie sensation “Good Will Hunting,” which earned them an Oscar for best original screenplay. The two worked together on the series “Project Greenlight” for HBO in the early 2000s and starred in a few films for Kevin Smith (1999’s “Dogma,” 2001’s “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back”), but they did not collaborate. creatively on film again until Ridley Scott’s 2021 period drama “The Last Duel,” which they wrote with Nicole Holofcener. Damon also took on a lead role in that film, with Affleck in a supporting performance.
“Air” marked Affleck’s first time directing Damon, which initially intimidated the filmmaker. “Before filming, I thought, ‘Matt has worked with Spielberg, Scorsese and the Coen brothers,'” Affleck said in a Variety Directors on Directors Conversation with Michael B. Jordan in December. “So now, in his mind, he’s going to be pitting me against these other experiences. … I remember the cinematographer, Bob Richardson, approached me after the third or fourth day. He said, “I think Matt trusts you now.” I was like, ‘I think so too.’ There I felt a kind of professional respect that really meant a lot to me.”
Brad Weston and Collin Creighton, who developed the project with Fifth Season, are also producing “Animals.” Michael Joe and Kevin Halloran of Artists Equity are executive producers.