Matt Damon's Worst Bourne Movie Came Out Just Before Ben Affleck's Better Action Thriller

Everyone knows the story of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's lifelong friendship; how they broke into Hollywood together by writing and starring in "Good Will Hunting," winning an Oscar and establishing themselves as two of the most significant forces in the industry for decades to come. That's the short version, anyway. The slightly longer version begins with the boys growing up together in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where they lived just two blocks apart and attended the same school. After high school, Damon enrolled in Harvard, where he wrote the beginnings of "Good Will Hunting" before dropping out and traveling to live with his buddy, Affleck, out in Los Angeles.

During that pre-"Good Will Hunting" period, both actors found work in multiple projects, with Damon appearing in a forgotten 1994 Western that marked Tommy Lee Jones' directorial debut and Affleck landing a role in the Danielle Steel TV movie adaptation, "Daddy." Both Damon and Affleck also worked as extras in Kevin Costner's "Field of Dreams" (though they're never actually seen on-screen) and appeared together in 1992's "School Ties." 

Once "Good Will Hunting" became the massive success it did, the boys' entire lives changed. But even after becoming massive stars, the duo have continued their professional relationship, appearing together in multiple films from 1999's "Dogma" to 2021's "The Last Duel" and the 2023's "Air," in which Affleck gave Nike and Air Jordan the "Moneyball" treatment with Damon starring. Between "Good Will Hunting" and "Air," though, there was an interesting moment where both actors fronted action movies released months apart, one of which was good, one of which was awful.

After his career took off, Matt Damon bolstered his megastar standing by redefining action movies in a post-9/11 world. In fairness, he had a lot of help from director Doug Liman and writers Tony Gilroy and William Blake Herron, who with 2002's "The Bourne Identity" helped action filmmaking find its footing in a world where James Bond had become an invisible car-driving, tsunami kite-surfing joke in the wake of "Die Another Day" (the worst Bond movie according to IMDb and legions of fans).

Based on Robert Ludlum's 1980 novel of the same name, "The Bourne Identity" played a part in the "gritty reboot" trend of the early 2000s. But beyond that, and more importantly, the movie brought action filmmaking back down to Earth, with taught and intense combat that often played out without the assistance of any score, highlighting every grunt and grimace endured and dealt by Damon's amnesiac CIA operative Jason Bourne. The now-famous shaky cam approach added to the intensity, immersing viewers in Bourne's relentless mission to uncover the truth of his identity at the same time as action movies rediscovered their own. It was a seminal film, made better by the fact Universal Pictures somehow managed to make two excellent sequels that many consider better than the original (for the official word on that, check /Film's ranking of the Jason Bourne movies). Damon himself also proved he was not only capable of playing an action hero, but of becoming arguably the pre-eminent action hero of his time, before Keanu Reeves' John Wick came along in 2014 and stole the crown by force.

Two years after Reeves' almost supernaturally deadly hitman arrived, Jason Bourne returned to remind everyone that he was the action hero king in a fourth installment in the franchise (well, technically fifth, if you want to count the spin-off "The Bourne Legacy") that failed to do anything beyond sully the reputation of the previous three films. Released in July 2016, "Jason Bourne" saw Damon return as the titular operative following the misstep that was 2012's "The Bourne Legacy," in which his replacement, Jeremy Renner, had failed to maintain the saga's standing. Damon's return was supposed to restore the Bourne series to greatness, but "Jason Bourne" was so bad it made fans retroactively reconsider their love of the franchise. Aside from the lugubrious pacing, Bourne was suddenly making choices that seemed to undermine everything the previous three films had established for the character, marking a real nadir for a series that had once redefined action movies. Meanwhile, Ben Affleck must have seen an opportunity because three months later he debuted his own action hero in the form of Christian Wolff.

After Matt Damon's return in "Jason Bourne" failed to re-establish the franchise, Ben Affleck swooped in and showed his old buddy how to do it. "The Accountant" was a ridiculous movie that featured Affleck as an autistic accountant who'd had his pre-eminent badassery drilled into him by his militaristic father. The deceptively deadly hero spent his days filing people's taxes, laundering money for criminals, and beating up guys without even breaking a sweat and while the whole thing was absurd, it was also really cool.

Months prior to Affleck's actioner, "Jason Bourne" had made $415 million on a $120 million budget. "The Accountant" was arguably a better success in comparison, making $155.2 million on a $44 million budget, though both movies underwhelmed critics, and currently bear a mid-50s Rotten Tomatoes score. But that feels unfair, because "The Accountant" is a much better movie than "Jason Bourne." Sadly, Affleck would go on to pull a "Jason Bourne" of his own with 2025's "The Accountant 2," in which he suddenly and inexplicably affects a Derek Zoolander accent as Wolff in a movie that's seemingly intent upon letting us know it's in on the joke of just how ridiculous the premise of this series really is. The first film played everything straight, and while it was silly it sort of worked. The second movie couldn't stop cracking jokes and undermined everything that worked about the first one. That said, many including /Film's Ryan Scott found "The Accountant 2" to be better than the original in every way, and the film's vastly improved RT score speaks to that point of view. These films are also the closest we'll get to Ben Affleck's solo Batman movie, which had been gestating throughout the now shuttered DC Extended Universe. 

While I maintain that "The Accountant 2" is Ben Affleck's "Jason Bourne," then, everything seems to suggest this particular action franchise will continue to produce hits while Universal tries to figure out what to do with the Bourne IP after bringing Damon back didn't fix anything — not that any of this will come between these longtime friends.