Friends and fellow actors Matt Damon and Casey Affleck have worked together on a number of films in the past, most notably in Gus Van Sant’s 1997 movie Good Will Hunting. Damon and Ben Affleck took home the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the film, launching the Damon/Affleck careers that have spanned more than 25 years in the entertainment business. Now, The Hollywood Reporter confirms that Matt Damon and Casey Affleck are teaming up again, this time for The Bourne Identity director Doug Liman’s newest project, The Instigators.
The Instigators will be an Apple Original Films production, and will reunite Doug Liman and Matt Damon after they launched The Bourne Identity together in 2002, resulting in a franchise that has been a success for Damon. The Instigators will star Matt Damon and Casey Affleck as fugitive thieves, who are running from the law after a robbery goes terribly wrong, and they enlist the help of one of their therapists in the process. The film will be produced by Damon, Ben Affleck, John Graham, and Kevin Walsh, some of which helped produce Manchester by the Sea which starred Casey Affleck.
Because of Kevin Walsh’s overall deal with Apple TV+, The Instigators will most likely debut on the streamer once it is released to movie audiences. Friends since their early days as struggling actors from Massachusetts, Matt Damon and Casey Affleck have been featured in several projects over the years, including the Ocean’s Eleven series of films, Chasing Amy directed by Kevin Smith, and the 2002 Gus Van Sant movie Gerry. Their collaboration has been a successful venture over the years, with Affleck winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for Manchester by the Sea in 2016, a movie that Damon helped get off the ground.
As for Matt Damon’s friend and Casey Affleck’s brother Ben, there is no word yet if he will be costarring in The Instigators in addition to his producing duties, but given the nature of their frequent collaborations, it might be possible to see his name tied to the new project as an actor eventually. Apple Original Films is currently seeing a string of successes on the Apple TV+ streaming service, with Spirited starring Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds debuting in time for the holiday season. The controversial awards contender Emancipation featuring Will Smith is another example of a movie recently released on the platform within the last month.
Director Doug Liman has been working hard at developing new projects for several years, as the helmer is mostly known for action flicks like The Bourne Identity. Besides working with Matt Damon and Casey Affleck, Doug Liman directed Tom Cruise in the 2017 action thriller American Made, then proceeded to bring Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley into the science fiction genre with 2021’s Chaos Walking. Liman will next direct a reboot of Road House, with actor Jake Gyllenhaal in the leading role of Dalton made famous by Patrick Swayze in the original 1989 film of the same name.
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