People tend to forget that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are Oscar-winning screenwriters. They won the Academy Award for their very first script: “Good Will Hunting” which is now 22 years old. Affleck and Damon have done lots of projects together over the years, “Project Greenlight,” produced many films together, but their promised follow-up screenplay collaboration has never arrived (not for lack of trying, many are unproduced). Hell, aside from “Dogma,” two years later, they’ve barely starred in anything together since.
Well, something they’re writing sounds like it’s going to be made and immediately so. Deadline reports that Ridley Scott is making “The Last Duel,” a revenge story of two best friends.
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Damon and Affleck will not only star in the movie they’re co-writing the screenplay. Nicole Holofcener (“Enough Said,” “The Land of Steady Habits“) is co-writing too though how that works; I’m not sure (see below).
Affleck and Damon have been attached to lots of projects to star alongside or work with each other in the past— “How an Ex-Cop Rigged McDonald’s Monopoly Game and Stole Millions,” which Affleck was going to direct and Damon would’ve starred in—but this one actually looks like it’s a go picture because when Ridley Scott decides to make a movie, it tends to happen really fast (see “The Counselor” and “All The Money In The World“).
will play them. One goes to war and returns to discover the other has raped the soldier’s wife. No one will believe the woman, and the soldier appeals to the king of France and says he wants to fight a duel to the death, and if the other guy wins, he is innocent. It becomes the last legally sanctioned duel in France.”
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The one rub seems to be: it’s a movie that was set up at Fox and may not be Disney’s favorite project given the risqué material.
It’s not only a period-piece revenge story of two best friends, but it’s also crazy. Per the trade: “One goes to war and returns to discover the other has raped the soldier’s wife. No one will believe the woman, and the soldier appeals to the king of France and says he wants to fight a duel to the death, and if the other guy wins, he is innocent. It becomes the last legally sanctioned duel in France.”
Deadline says if Disney doesn’t want it, every studio in town is interested so maybe that’ll force their hand. Also, isn’t this why they bought Fox in the first place so they could make these kinds of films (ok, kidding, it was for gigantic IP, but hey, Fox will still exist and still need to put out some adult fare).
For Scott, it’s somewhat a return to material he’s covered before: 1977’s “The Duelist,” a drama about a feud between two officers in the Napoleonic Era.
https://twitter.com/hunteryharris/status/1153402395256393728
