Ben Affleck, the Oscar-winning actor, writer, producer, director, and CEO of one of the most avant-garde companies in the industry has much more to contribute to the socio-cultural phenomenon than memes and gags. And now, with Matt Damon and Jennifer Lopez by his side, he has become unstoppable.
The company, Artists Equity, that he founded with fellow actor, childhood friend, and business partner, Damon has just launched its first film, Air, and it’s already turning heads – not because of the quality of content or the premise of profit-sharing among artists and creators but also because of the entire production team and especially Affleck’s revolutionary approach to filmmaking.
Ben Affleck’s Turning Point: a Mid-Life Crisis in a Pandemic
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the Argo actor has recently divulged quite a lot about his life, his Hollywood firsts, experiences both high and low, and the moment he realized he wanted to start contributing to making more meaningful projects.
“When The Way Back came out, I knew. It came out the weekend they shut the theaters down with COVID. But that’s not an excuse. Because I knew as it was coming out, just the tracking, I was like, “OK, here’s a movie about a guy, son dies, gets divorced, alcoholic. Nobody’s going to go to the theater to see this fu*king movie. They’re just not.” I felt it.
[…] My daughter is 17. She lives her life largely in opposition to the work her parents have spent their lives dedicated to, where she’ll say things like, “I’m not sure film is really … Do you think it’s a genuine art form?” I like the fact that she has this silver rapier tongue. But anyway, I went into it going, “OK, these movies aren’t fu*king working anymore. And these are the ones I like.””
The 2020s The Way Back was that film for him. Made on a paltry budget of $21-25 million, the movie failed to take off in the commercial market. It earned $15.5 million at the box office just as theatres began to close down indefinitely with the pandemic crippling businesses all over the globe. It was later released to a widely more receptive audience via streaming on Prime Video.
Ben Affleck Finds a New (and Better) Way to Make Movies
Soon after the theatrical embarrassment of The Way Back, the idea of building a production company that would not only serve to pander the profits to directors, actors, and producers but every creator and artist involved with a project began to take hold. From that momentum was born the Artists Equity. Funded by Redbird Capital Investors, the company now seeks to reward every faction that works from behind the scenes to the making of a film, including sound artists, editors, cinematographers, the hair & makeup department, costume designers, et al.
The company, born in the shadow of the streaming era, is set to be an independently sponsored and artist-led initiative striving to ensure fair and equitable compensation to film crews while also delivering quality projects that can sell commercially.
Air will premiere on 18 March 2023 before being released theatrically in the US on 5th April. The film will be launched and distributed by Amazon Studios across theaters without simultaneously streaming it on Prime Video (a first for the studio).
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
