Why Matt Damon And Ben Affleck Took 20 Years To Write Another Movie After Good Will Hunting

What do you do for an encore when your first produced script wins the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay? If you're Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, you go your separate ways for 22 years until Ridley Scott brings you back together to star in and write (along with Nicole Holofcener) "The Last Duel."

I always thought it was strange that Affleck and Damon didn't jump back in with another writing project after the success of "Good Will Hunting," if only to disprove the naysayers who claimed that "All the President's Men" screenwriter William Goldman script-doctored the entirety of their Oscar-winning screenplay. Both stars were clearly insulted by the insinuation (which Goldman himself repeatedly denied), so what better way than to show that "Good Will Hunting" wasn't a fluke?

It's not like the next two decades were a wash for Affleck and Damon. They both became bona fide movie stars on their own, while Affleck branched out into directing with terrific films like "Gone Baby Gone," "The Town," and the Best Picture-winning "Argo." But after their experience on Scott's frustratingly underseen "The Last Duel," the duo soon found themselves collaborating again by doing uncredited rewrites on the Nike biographical drama "Air." Given how well both projects turned out, if anyone still wants to attribute "Good Will Hunting" to Goldman, they're either dense or bitter.

So why did Affleck and Damon let 22 years go in between writing projects? They were just too in demand as actors.

In a recent interview with Empire, Affleck said, "For me, to be totally honest, it always felt like I was making it up, that I probably had something to prove on my own. Because I think most people sort of conflated us with those ["Good Will Hunting"] roles, which were very extreme. Matt was the genius, and I was his friend."

Splitting up worked out well for both stars. In 1998, Damon appeared in the title role of Steven Spielberg's masterful "Saving Private Ryan," while Affleck played the bane of Bruce Willis' existence in Michael Bay's killer asteroid blockbuster "Armageddon." But Affleck does have some regrets. In the interview, he compliments Damon for seeking to work with great directors, while he was less savvy in his choices, as evidenced by "Phantoms," "Forces of Nature," and "Bounce" (I'll give him a pass on "Reindeer Games" because that was an opportunity to work with "Seconds" director John Frankenheimer).

Damon comes back with a compliment for Affleck, who he believes is the stronger writer of the two. According to Damon:

"[F]rom the time we were kids, Ben and I went to the movies all the time with our friends, right? Didn't matter what was playing. We could walk out of a movie and eight of us would be like, 'Oh, that was terrible.' And Ben would go, 'Yeah, but you know what would have made it better? If this happened and then that happened...,' and he would script-doctor the movie in the parking lot. He would get into these movies where he knew how to fix it, but he didn't have the power to fix it."

"They call it wishful thinking," said Affleck.

That wish was granted and then some. I hope the boys' writing resurgence continues, and I can't wait to see them onscreen together when Joe Carnahan's "The Rip" hits Netflix on January 16, 2026.