Matt Damon and Casey Affleck are together again! More than 25 years after the men starred alongside one another in Good Will Hunting, they are once again sharing the screen in Apple TV+’s The Instigators.
On Friday, the streaming service dropped the first trailer for the action comedy, which follows struggling father Rory (Damon) and ex-con Cobby (Affleck), two unlikely partners who team up to steal from a corrupt politician. The job goes wrong, though, and, as the duo is pursued by police, bureaucrats and crime bosses, they enlist the help of Rory’s therapist (Hong Chau) to evade capture.
The trailer shows off the high-speed drama of the heist flick, full of car chases, hostage situations and well-timed jokes.
In addition to Damon and Affleck, the Doug Liman-directed film, which was written by Chuck MacLean and Affleck, also stars Michael Stuhlbarg, Paul Walter Hauser, Ving Rhames, Alfred Molina, and Toby Jones, with Jack Harlow and Ron Perlman.
“The inspiration for this was definitely Midnight Run and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” Affleck previously told Entertainment Weekly, before adding that he’d always “wanted to do a buddy action comedy.”
“The Instigators is about two strangers who are hired for a heist,” Affleck said of the Boston-set flick. “They become frenemies and then become friends while Jack Harlow yells at us, Paul Walter Hauser insults us, Ving Rhames hunts us, and Hong Chau keeps us alive.”
As for why Damon signed on to the project, which reunited him with his Bourne Identity director, the actor said, “Casey Affleck and Chuck MacLean had created some great characters and a really fun world. More than anything, it was a chance to work with Doug and Casey together that I was the most excited about. And it’s always great to go back to Boston.”
Affleck and Damon, along with the former’s brother, Ben Affleck, go way back, even living together in their early days in Hollywood. Teaming up with the longtime pals, Liman told the outlet, made him feel like he was “parachuted into a family.”
“With Bourne, I was inviting Matt into my world,” the director said. “But with Instigators, I was very clearly being dropped into Matt’s family. And all that history, good and bad, is on the screen.”
In addition to Good Will Hunting, Damon and Affleck have shared the screen in Chasing Amy, the Ocean’s franchise, Gerry, Interstellar and Oppenheimer.
The Instigators will premiere in select theaters Aug. 2. It will arrive on Apple TV+ Aug. 9.
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