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Damon and Affleck Developing Whitey Bulger Film

By Steven Lloyd Wilson | Posted Under Trade News | Comments (11)

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There were rumors that Damon and Affleck were going to collaborate next on a film about the couple of Yankees players who swapped wives back in the seventies in an effort to ensure that the decade would forever hold first place as the sleaziest decade in the history of the world. Of course the players were sort of reluctant to have the story told (lawyers may or may not have been deployed), and Damon and Affleck realized that as lifelong Red Sox fans they really preferred films in which the Yankees were figuratively rather than literally fucked. So they’ve moved on to a Whitey Bulger biography.

Damon told GQ as an aside in an article about the future of international trade:

We’re doing a Whitey Bulger movie… Warner’s got it for us. There are a couple of competing movies and I don’t think it’s been announced yet that we’re doing it… But the sooner it’s announced the better, just because everyone else will back off, hopefully. I’m really excited about it.

I think it’s hilarious that the only information he gives about his film on a gangster is that the seven competing films in early production should find something better to do. Where’d we find the idea for this film? It fell off the back off a truck.

Bulger does have an interesting biography, with elements to distinguish it from just another knockoff of Goodfellas. He had a sort of Robin Hood mythos going in the area, which allows some deft dramatic tension in the right hands, and also was an FBI informant for a large chunk of his illustrious business career.

The plan is for Affleck to direct, Damon to star as Bulger, and for Terence Winter of “The Sopranos,” and “Boardwalk Empire” fame to write the script. So you know, they got that going for them.









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Comments

Well, Damon could easily be a dead ringer for a young Bulger.

So I'm interested, is what I'm saying.

Posted by: The Other Agent Johnson at October 25, 2011 10:24 AM

Wasn't Bulger the inspiration for Jack Nicholson's character in The Departed? If that's the case, Damon's playing a different role in the same movie.

Posted by: JP at October 25, 2011 10:36 AM

My apologies. Did you say something? Was there text after that picture? Are we discussing a new projec...Dammmonnnnnn. Mmm.

Posted by: Scully at October 25, 2011 10:55 AM

They do have the Boston cred. And I'd like to see a movie the two of them collaborated on. So yeah, count me in.

Posted by: tamatha at October 25, 2011 12:26 PM

It makes me so happy whenever I see one of the few happy couples that Hollywood hasn't (yet) managed to destroy. I wish them well on this and all of their future projects.

It's nice to know that romance isn't dead.

Posted by: Lipton at October 25, 2011 12:59 PM

Affleck directing - woot!
Damon acting - woot!
Winter writing - ah, woot! (haven't watched either of his shows, but they've had good reviews so yay).

sign me up.

Posted by: Stella at October 25, 2011 1:41 PM

Affleck has been so strong with his projects as of late. Adding in Damon and Winter seals it for me.

Posted by: Matt at October 25, 2011 5:15 PM

I am very excited about this! I have been waiting impatiently for years for Affleck and Damon to come together on a project…See you guys at the movies!!!

Posted by: Angelina Stevens at October 25, 2011 7:08 PM

Yeah JP my Mom is from Boston and is obsessed with Whitey Bulger's whole saga. When she first told me about it I thought "Oh that's totally the storyline from the Departed."

Posted by: Genesee at October 26, 2011 12:47 AM

Whitey was hardly a Robin Hood figure. He liked to perpetuate the myth that there were no drugs in Southie as heroin OD-ers dropped around him but people knew the truth. He killed a great many people with pleasure, at least two of them were women and many were in the wrong place at the wrong time and he was also a rat informant for the FBI. I'm born and raised in the Boston area and have followed this story for decades.

Love to see what Matt and Ben will do with this story.

Posted by: kirbyjay at October 26, 2011 5:55 AM

How the hell do you write a piece about Matt Damon making a Whitey Bulger film without mentioning The Departed?

Posted by: Grafty at October 26, 2011 7:30 AM