We loved Project Greenlight, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s reality TV show centered around discovering new movie-making talent and then greenlighting a project around their new finds—all the while, filming the many disasters that inevitably follow any film production. And now it’s back, but with one disappointing twist.
So it turns out new screenwriters need not apply to this season of Project Greenlight, because the directors will already be working with a “Hollywood vetted” script, whatever that means. This is rather odd coming from two actors who got their real big break through screenwriting. Sure, they worked in Hollywood for a long time, but Good Will Hunting put these two on the map, especially as creators. This news is rather disappointing.
Maybe it was too hard? One of my absolute favorite moments from the entire series is when Matt Damon throws down about greenlighting the Feast script during their horror season. You see him and Affleck in a room with Wes Craven drinking and smoking and arguing about, “I’ve never done a movie based on fucking marketing materials.” It’s great. It’s real. Seriously, watch this clip right now; it’s basically Matt Damon at his greatest (he’s mad as hell around the 3 minute mark).
Who knows, maybe Damon and Affleck are too busy to dedicate this much time to finding both a script and a director in just a few months? Or maybe they had to promise the studio that is backing this production that this Project Greenlight film would actually make money. It’s all very un-organic, but then again, so is Hollywood.
Oh well. In the end, we’re still happy both Damon and Affleck are back. It’s going to be pretty great to get to listen to them share advice nine years after the last season. They are both big, big, big stars now. They have seen some shit. But it is my sincerest hope that Affleck and Damon continue to hold meetings in a little room while smoking and drinking Heinekens.
