Written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, Good Will Hunting is truly a one-of-a-kind film. The film was made on a low budget of $10 million and it went on to make $225 million at the box office. Clearly, fans had a blast watching it. Even critics couldn’t stop praising Good Will Hunting which is quite evident by the fact that it has a 97% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
The question is, though, what inspired best buddies Matt Damon and Ben Affleck to write a story about a Math genius going through an emotional crisis? Well, while the actors are two of the biggest stars in Hollywood right now, things weren’t exactly the same back in the ‘90s. Thus, when they both lost a major film to Edward Norton, they knew they had to take things into their own hands to make it big in Hollywood.
How Edward Norton Inspired Matt Damon and Ben Affleck
Matt Damon hired a dialect coach with the very little money he had in order to audition for the 1996 film, Primal Fear. This was because he knew that the lead role in the film was going to produce Hollywood’s next star. Unfortunately, the role went to The Incredible Hulk actor, Edward Norton.
After missing out on the opportunity, Damon and Ben Affleck created a pact – they’d come up with their own film. Gone were the days when they’d sit around waiting for auditions to come up. The two childhood friends got together and wrote Good Will Hunting, a film they starred in, as well.
Talking about why they decided to take things into their own hands, Damon stated on The Off Camera Show,
“That was one of the things that was really the impetus behind Ben and I writing Good Will Hunting and focusing on it, was because when Primal Fear, when Edward Norton got Primal Fear, we went, ‘F***. There’s not gonna be another one of those that’s gonna come around. We gotta do our own thing. What are the odds that a movie with that good a role is gonna make it all the way through the ranks of known actors and then get thrown to the wolves? And all of us are gonna fight for that scrap, and one of us will get it. This ain’t gonna work.”
But don’t get him wrong. Damon never beat himself up for missing out on such pivotal roles. It was the system he was frustrated at. He stated that the “system is not built for you to succeed. You have to break through it” and we couldn’t agree more.
Ben Affleck & Matt Damon Were Shocked the Film Got Released
The only aim behind going through the tedious process of writing a script was to showcase their talents. During his appearance on The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, Affleck revealed that Good Will Hunting was initially meant to be a video cassette, showing off his and Damon’s versatility as actors. Thus, when the film actually released in theatres, the duo was left stunned.
“The whole thing of Good Will Hunting was really just to make – at that time – a video cassette that was like an acting reel. Like, we can’t get the job to show that we can do interesting stuff, so the whole thing was, have a reel and show casting directors, and so we’ll write these parts for ourselves…that was our ambition so I think we were shocked that it even got released.”
The film didn’t just get “released,” it got released to truckloads of positive feedback from the critics. It went on to get nominated at the 70th Academy Awards in nine categories, winning two out of those. The Hollywood Reporter ranked it amongst its ‘100 Favorite Films’ in 2014.
Who knew an intended video cassette would turn things around for Damon and Affleck?
You can stream Good Will Hunting on Max.
Source: The Off Camera Show
