Whatever wizard Damon and Affleck managed to cross in their Cambridge days must have been very powerful, because eight years later, the curse seems to be going strong.
Both would underperform at the box office, while things picked up for Damon with a supporting role in Ocean’s Eleven in 2001 and then a starring one in what would turn out to be a hit franchise, The Bourne Identity, in 2002, but Affleck was arguably the hotter star in these years.
Damon had a few disappointing showings of his own, like Stuck on You and The Brothers Grimm, but sequels in the Ocean’s and Bourne franchises were there to buoy him, and eventually he gained some additional cachet with critics to boot for his work in movies like The Departed and The Informant! Damon had also made what seemed like a canny move to keep himself out of the tabloids: He quietly began dating his future wife, who was a bartender when they met, in 2003.
In his acceptance speech for that award, he famously awkwardly hinted at troubles in his marriage with Garner, but he even seemed to figure out a way to make that work to his advantage: After Argo, he played a dirtbag husband in Gone Girl, and when the movie became a blockbuster and genuine cultural phenomenon, it also read as a savvy commentary on his personal life.
The Martian was a huge hit in 2015, he had another Bourne movie in 2016, and 2019’s Ford v Ferrari was well-received, all of which would seem to mark Damon the clear victor of this period, during which Affleck’s marriage with Garner ended, he struggled with sobriety, his directorial follow-up to Argo, Live by Night, flopped, and his stretch as Batman in the D.C.
Some of the people who have professed to have less patience for Damon’s traditional straight white male movie star persona than they used to seem to be the same ones who have come to appreciate Affleck for his very messiness.
Damon, meanwhile, was not only apparently still using the word f—–t in casual conversation until recently, but thought it was a good idea to tell a reporter a cute story about it.
If the curse continues to operate as we expect it too, this too shall pass, but the question is how quickly: Will Affleck maintain supremacy for the next few years, or will Damon snatch it back sooner than that? The Last Duel, which is scheduled to come out in October, will be an important movie for curse-watchers and curse-naysayers alike to watch, as it will mark the first time since Good Will Hunting that Damon and Affleck appear in a movie they’ve written together.