While Matt Damon remains one of the biggest stars in the world, he does have a couple of regrets. One of them seems to be bowing out of The Dark Knight. But one of the things he definitely doesn't regret is his career-making film, Good Will Hunting. Not only did Matt Damon star in the 1997 film, but he also wrote it with his bestie Ben Affleck. Together, the two of them won an Oscar, gave Robin Williams one of his best performances, and won him an Oscar as well, and, finally, the two of them were set up for life. The success of this Gus Van Sant directed movie only adds to the level of discomfort with the fact that it almost wasn't made... And, according to a fantastic article by Boston Magazine, this is because of something Ben And Matt requested...
Things Started Off REALLY Good
When Matt Damon and Ben Affleck completed the script, it flew around Hollywood like a jet on booger sugar. Everyone wanted to read it, according to Patrick Whitesell, who was one of the most prevalent agents in the business.
"My phone started ringing like crazy," Patrick Whitesell told Boston Magazine. "Everyone wanted to sit down with Matt and Ben. It started getting hot. There was a bidding war."
Soon after the script was shown around, it was purchased by Castle Rock, the production company run by legendary filmmaker Rob Reiner. Rob was totally happy that Matt and Ben also wanted to star in it, so that was factored into the deal.
"I remember it was printed in Daily Variety that we were going to get $600,000 on it," Ben Affleck said to Boston Magazine. "We had no credit, so we went to rent this house that was $3,000 a month, and we used a copy of the Daily Variety to get the place. I was like, 'I don’t have credit, but this is who we are.' And the landlord was like, 'All right, sure.' We thought $600,000 would take care of us for 20 years, so we rented nicer apartments and each bought Jeep Cherokees. And we were completely broke in a year."
As far as things seemed to move, there were some issues afoot. First and foremost, Rob Reiner didn't quite believe that the script was the way it should be. Therefore, he was responsible for getting Matt and Ben to take some stuff out.
"Rob Reiner at Castle Rock said, 'Look, you have two movies in this script, and the movies are fighting each other. There’s the thriller aspect of the kids from Southie thwarting the big government agency, and then there’s this really awesome character story about this math genius and his relationship with this shrink. And we don’t think those two can live together.' And to their credit, Castle Rock said, 'You guys wrote a great script and you’re the stars of the movie, so we’re putting it to you. You’ve got to pick one,'' producer Chris Moore, a friend of Ben Affleck's before Good Will Hunting, said.
All of this terrified Matt Damon.
"We had this 120-to-130-page script, and once we removed the NSA stuff it was 60 pages," Matt Damon said to Boston Magazine. "We were going, 'What’s the movie then? What happens?'"
After the complete overhaul, Rob and Castle Rock were happy, but there was a major disagreement about who should direct it.
Ben And Matt Got Too Cocky And It Almost Ended The Chance Of The Film Getting Made
"When the question came up [about who should direct the film], we would say, 'We’ll direct it!' and there would be silence in the room," Ben Affleck admitted of the project that spawned from Matt Damon's personal experience at Harvard and his upbringing alongside Ben in a suburb of Boston. "It was a polite silence, like, 'Are you high?' But it was the beginning of my own directorial ambition."
Unfortunately, this disagreement almost ended the chance of the movie getting made.
"So Castle Rock, in my opinion, did the right thing, and said, 'Okay, we have a creative disagreement. Even though we own the script and we could fire you guys, we’ll give you time to go out and find somebody who will buy your version of the movie. But there’s a price tag: We want to get our money back, and if you can’t find anybody to buy it, when it comes back to us, you guys are not the stars,'" Chris Moore said.
These high stakes pushed Ben and Matt to do it their way and make some more minor changes to the script that they found Castle Rock just wasn't reading... It seemed they had lost a certain amount of interest in the movie due to Matt and Ben's desire to co-direct it.
This caused them to put in a graphic scene that made no sense to the story. If a producer or production company would comment on that scene, Matt and Ben knew that they were actually paying attention to their work.
But by now, all of the other studios were passing... Matt and Ben's directorial desire just wasn't attractive to them. So, they had to give it up... Thankfully, they found someone who could help them...
"Ben gave it to [Chasing Amy director] Kevin Smith and said, 'Will you please save us? Will you direct this movie?'" Matt Damon said. "And Kevin read the script and was unbelievably kind. I still remember the message. He said, 'I wouldn’t dare direct this movie, this is so beautiful.' Kevin went in personally to Harvey Weinstein’s office at Miramax and handed him the script, and basically said, 'Drop everything you’re doing right now and read this.'"
It was the now-disgraced Harvey Weinstein who ended up finding Gus Van Sant to make Good Will Hunting and ultimately make Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's careers.