Deadline has reported that Matt Damon and Casey Affleck are set to reunite for The Instigators. The project recently landed at Apple Original Films and has Doug Liman attached to direct.
The Instigators will find Matt Damon and Casey Affleck playing two thieves on the run with the help of one of their therapists after a robbery gone wrong. The script was written by Chuck MacLean and was developed by Jeff Robinov, John Graham, and Casey Affleck. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck will produce through their Artists Equity banner, which “partners with filmmakers to empower creative vision and broaden access to profit participation.” Jeff Robinov and John Graham will also produce through Studio 8, as well as Kevin Walsh through The Walsh Company.
Matt Damon and Casey Affleck have appeared together many times before, going back to Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy, Gus Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting, and Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve, and Ocean’s Thirteen. The Instigators also serves as a reunion between Damon and director Doug Liman, who kicked off the Bourne franchise with The Bourne Identity twenty years ago.
The first project to emerge from Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s Artists Equity will tell the story of the creation of Nike’s Air Jordan brand. Ben Affleck will direct, write, co-star, and produce, while Matt Damon will star, write, and produce. Damon is set to play Sonny Vaccarro with Affleck playing Nike co-founder Phil Knight. The movie will revolve around “Nike’s longshot effort to sign rising superstar basketball player Michael Jordan to its shoe company in the mid-eighties, an endorsement that seemed impossible at the time but thanks to the maverick sneaker salesman, would become the most significant relationship between an athletic brand and an athlete. The deal launched the global, multi-billion-dollar contemporary sneaker industry and also helped the sport do the same.” The film is currently in post-production and is expected to be released next year.