Ben Affleck and Matt Damon Turned Down ‘Good Will Hunting 2’
After more than a quarter century, the collaboration between Matt Damon and Ben Affleck is still going strong. The pair have a brand new movie headed to theaters, Air, about the creation of the original Nike Air Jordan sneaker, which Affleck directed and which both starred in and produced. The pair also recently launched a new production company called Artists Equity, through which they can continue to make new projects together or separately.
They are not necessarily looking to replicate their past successes however. On the red carpet for Air, Affleck revealed that the pair had recently been approached about making a sequel to Good Will Hunting, their breakthrough 1997 film which made their careers and won them the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
“I s— you not — that happened,” Damon told Variety. “[Affleck] told me today. He was like, ‘You’re not going to believe what I heard.’ This was a flat-out sequel. I don’t get it.”
It’s not a sequel we’re going to pursue,” Affleck added.
The very notion of doing a sequel to Good Will Hunting, the story of a math prodigy who has failed to live up to his potential because of his struggles with his traumatic past, is so absurd it was the subject of an extended sequence in Kevin Smith’s Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, where the title characters make their way to Hollywood and wander onto the set of Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season.
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Maybe Affleck and Damon just realized they’ll never top that scene with a real sequel so why even try? Air opens in theaters on April 5.