Ben Affleck, Matt Damon 'AIR' reunion: Why the 'feel-good movie' almost didn't happen

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are promoting their new film “Air,” telling the story of Nike’s Air Jordans. The film follows a Nike executive that lands a Michael Jordan endorsement, boosting the young athlete’s career and creating a product that revolutionized the sports market. In an interview, Affleck and Damon discussed the first time they met Jordan, with Jordan and Affleck entering a challenge of who was tallest.

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are longtime best friends, but they weren’t the best roommates.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor “Air” music supervisor Andrea von Foerster received a music playlist from Ben Affleck titled 1984. “It was literally my childhood,” she says of the song collection that featured classic ’80s hits including “Africa” by Toto, “Candy Girl” by New Edition and “Jump” by Van Halen. The Affleck-helmed film, set in that same year, navigates Nike’s bid to land NBA player Michael Jordan and explores his groundbreaking sponsorship deal with the company. That playlist from the director and star of the film was the springboard for the 23 needle drops and 18 score cues “Air” features. In curating the film’s needle drops, Foerster wasn’t just using music to play against what was on screen — “the music was used as a showcase to tell a story,” she says.

post-COVID theatrical gambit, “Air,” tells the mostly untold story of how Nike convinced a promising NBA rookie named Michael Jordan to sign with them over the market-dominating likes of Addidas and Converse. Directed by Ben Affleck and starring Matt Damon alongside a packed ensemble cast, the film also stars Viola Davis, Chris Tucker, Jason Bateman, Marlon Wayans and Chris Messina and has debuted to mostly rapturous reviews and early-bird Oscar buzz.It’s also the feature screenwriting debut of 25-year-old Alex Convery.

People Wednesday that Affleck kept him grounded as fame started to “mess” with his head in the early days of his career.“It’s been really helpful to check in with Ben throughout this whole surreal process over the last 25 years,” Damon said. “I think the shock of becoming famous is so … I mean, that messed me up for a couple years,” he added. Affleck, 50, and Damon met in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when they were young kids and bonded over a love of baseball and film.

on the “American Idol” winner’s daytime talk show. Damon then explained how he set up a super-intense group in which players compete in Wordle, Quordle and Octordle, before combining their scores.“So there’s Octordle, which is the eight words, and then Quordle, which is the four words, and then Wordle, which is the one. So we play all three and you add up your score,” the “Bourne Identity” actor enthused.

While Ben Affleck and Matt Damon were writing “The Last Duel,” their first screenplay together since their 1997 breakthrough, “Good Will Hunting,” they noticed that something in their winding and usually separate careers had been missing.

Still running on Dunkin’! Ben Affleck proved his lasting love for the coffee chain in a new commercial — despite being mistaken for BFF Matt Damon.

Air, whether because of (it's her husband Ben Affleck's film), that Viola Davis play his mom in the movie, or from the countless promos on TV, social media, and just about everywhere. And I'll be honest, when I first heard about the story—about the game-changing partnership between a then rookie Michael Jordan and Nike’s fledgling basketball division—I wasn't like, get me to the theater now.I love a good sports movie (The Natural, Field of Dreams, and Rocky among them), but growing up without a local NBA team or an obsession with Nike meant I wasn't totally sold. Still, I was interested enough that I made the trek to Amazon Studios for the press screening.

Yes, we are making a meal out of Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s recent appearance on Bill Simmons’s The Ringer podcast recently to promote Affleck’s new directorial effort “Air” which co-stars Damon (read our review), about Nike and its relationship with Michael Jordan and we fully admit it. Look, it’s just chalked full of good stories, and look; sometimes this is (infinitely) more interesting than the regular news grist mill.

Ben Affleck steals the show at the “Air” red carpet.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor It’s been more than 25 years since Ben Affleck became the youngest Oscar winner for best original screenplay for “Good Will Hunting,” which he co-wrote and starred in with Matt Damon. Isn’t it time for a sequel? Not so much. Damon laughed when revealing that Affleck was recently approached for a follow-up movie. “Someone just tried to pitch Ben ‘Good Will Hunting 2,’” Damon told me Monday at the premiere of “Air” in Los Angeles. “I shit you not — that happened. He told me today. He was like, ‘You’re not going to believe what I heard.’ This was a flat-out sequel. I don’t get it.”

Matt Damon and his wife, Luciana Barroso, looked great on Monday at the premiere of his film,  at Regency Village Theatre in West Hollywood — but it was their daughters who stole the show.The 52-year-old actor and his wife of 17 years were joined by their three daughters, Isabella, 16, Gia, 14, and Stella, 12, who posed next to their parents on the red carpet. Damon recently co-founded a production company called Artists Equity with Ben Affleck, who also attended the premiere with his wife, Jennifer Lopez.Air, directed by Affleck, tells the story of the sneaker brand, Nike, and Air Jordan's rise to fame.The new film features an all-star cast, including Chris Tucker, Jason Bateman, and EGOT winner Viola Davis.Also at the premiere, Damon, Affleck, and Davis, all Oscar winners, posed together.The shoes — produced by American corporation Nike, Inc — were created for Hall of Fame former basketball player Michael Jordan during his time with the Chicago Bulls in 1984 and were released on April 1,1985.Although not directly involved with the film, Jordan met with Affleck prior to the start of production and gave the project his blessing. The casting of Davis was his idea.Damon plays sports executive Sonny Vaccaro, who is in charge of improving Nike's sales in their basketball division and works to sign rookie Jordan to a deal to wear their shoes.During the premiere, Damon jokingly spoke with ET's Kevin Frazier about his longstanding bitter rivalry with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, who was also at the event.

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez packed on the PDA at the red carpet premiere of his new film, Air, on Monday night. Ben and Jennifer, who rekindled their early 2000s romance and got married last year, attended the red carpet premiere for Ben's new sports film which he both directed and stars in.The couple were seen posing together, and put on some PDA for the cameras as they were seen holding each other close before kissing. Jennifer wore a long-sleeved Antonia Grimaldi dress which had a sheer white top covered in rhinestones with a neon green maxi skirt that perfectly hugged her around her hips and waist.

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's professional collaborations date back to their childhood friendship. But the A-list stars took their bro status a step further than most.On a recent episode of, Affleck and Damon revealed that they shared a bank account when they were in high school and trying to get their careers off the ground.«It was always like, as long as one of us had money, we knew that the power wasn't going to get shut off. After doing Geronimo, f**k, I probably had $35K in the bank in my checking account.

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon used to share a bank account in order to fund acting auditions.The Oscar-winning duo have famously been friends for the entirety of their careers and beyond, and that friendship even extended beyond the usual boundaries. Appearing on a recent episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast (as per Variety), the two actors revealed they had one bank account between them starting in the late 1980s.The pair set up the bank account to help make their dreams of making it in Hollywood a reality. “It was unusual, but we needed the money for auditions,” Damon said, before adding the arrangement was “a weird thing in retrospect.”Weighing in, Affleck said: “We were going to help each other and be there for each other.

The Bill Simons Podcast” that starting in the 1980s, they had one bank account between the two of them to help pay for auditions and jumpstart their acting careers.“It was unusual, but we needed the money for auditions,” Damon admitted, saying it’s “a weird thing in retrospect.”“We were going to help each other and be there for each other,” Affleck added. “It was like, ‘You’re not going to be alone. I’m not going to be alone.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are longtime friends who have collaborated together and won an Oscar together, so perhaps it’s not surprising to learn they even shared a bank account as young actors. The duo appeared on a recent episode of “The Bill Simmons Podcast” (via CNBC) and revealed they had one bank account between them starting in the late 1980s in order to fund auditions and start their acting careers. “It was unusual, but we needed the money for auditions,” Damon said, calling it “a weird thing in retrospect.” “We were going to help each other and be there for each other,” Affleck said. “It was like, ‘You’re not going to be alone. I’m not going to be alone. Let’s go out there and do this together.’”

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s friendship and working partnership really does go all the way back to high school. At a Q&A after a New York screening of their latest project, "Air," the duo joked about working together for almost 40 years. Affleck, who directs and stars in the film with Damon, joked, "It's not the first time I've carried him," according to IndieWire.

Matt Damon couldn’t just pick one favourite thing about working with his longtime friend Ben Affleck as a director on their new film “Air”.