Matt Damon on writing with Ben Affleck for the first time in 20 years

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

More than 20 years ago, Matt Damon (FORD V FERRARI) and Ben Affleck (THE WAY BACK) wrote the script for GOOD WILL HUNTING and won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. You would think that the pair would collaborate again after that success, but they haven't written anything together since, until now. Together with Nicole Holofcener (ENOUGH SAID), Damon and Affleck have penned the screenplay for THE LAST DUEL, an epic tale of betrayal and justice which will be told from three distinct points of view, that of two French knights, whose bond is tested by treachery, as well as a young woman who is forced to navigate the brutal and oppressive culture of the era in order to survive.

While speaking on The Bill Simmons Podcast, Matt Damon spoke about writing THE LAST DUEL with Ben Affleck and revealed how the writing duties were split with Holofcener.

Well we wrote something together along with this unbelievable writer, her name's Nicole Holofcener, she’s just great great. So the three of us wrote this movie, it’s about medieval France and it’s called The Last Duel and it’s about the last sanctioned duel in medieval France which between two knights, one of whom claimed the other raped his wife. It’s really this movie about perspective, so Ben and I wrote the male perspectives and Nicole wrote the female perspective. I think it could potentially be really interesting.

Matt Damon added that he believes he'll write more with Ben Affleck, especially as scripting THE LAST DUEL took much less time than their last collaboration. "Good Will Hunting took us such a long time, and I think we always told ourselves and each other we just don’t have time to write. We’re never really in the same place for very long. And then this one we wrote so fast and I think it’s because in the intervening 25 years, we did nothing but make movies, so we know so much more about it now," Damon explained. "Our process was so much more streamlined that without even trying to, we didn’t set a deadline for ourselves, I’d just show up at his house or he’d show up at my house and we’d write for three hours. We’d take the kids to school and then we’d just grab a coffee and sit down and start working, and suddenly it’s like, 'Wait we have 20 pages? I think they’re good? I read them again last night.' And before we knew it we had two-thirds of our movie and Nicole was every bit as fast, I mean she’s a professional writer so she’s great, and she’s faster than we are. Suddenly it’s like 'Wait we have 150 pages guys, we gotta pare this down.'"

A synopsis of "The Last Duel" via Amazon:

When Jean de Carrouges, a Norman knight, returns from combat in Scotland to find his wife, Marguerite, accusing Jacques LeGris, her husband’s old friend and fellow courtier, of brutally raping her, the knight takes his cause before the teenage King Charles VI. Amid LeGris’s vociferous claims of innocence and doubts about the now pregnant Marguerite’s charges (and about the paternity of her child), the deadlocked court decrees a “trial by combat” that leaves her fate, too, in the balance. For if her husband and champion loses the duel, she will be put to death as a false accuser.

Carrouges and LeGris, in full armor, eventually meet on a walled field in Paris before a massive crowd that includes the king and many nobles of the realm. A fierce fight on horseback and then on foot ensues during which both combatants suffer wounds—but only one fatal. The violent and tragic episode was notorious in its own time because of the nature of the alleged crime, the legal impasse it provoked, and the resulting trial by combat, an ancient but increasingly suspect institution that was thereafter abolished.

In addition to scripting THE LAST DUEL, both Matt Damon and Ben Affleck will star in the film, with Damon playing one of the knights and Affleck playing a supporting role. Adam Driver (STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER) is said to be in talks to play the other knight with Jodie Comer (Killing Eve) onboard to play the young woman. Ridley Scott (ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD) is slated to direct, but the project hasn't yet received the greenlight.