'The Instigators' Trailer: Matt Damon and Casey Affleck Go Full Boston

It’s been a while since we’ve had a good Boston-set film because I guess Ben ran out of Dennis Lehane novels to adapt. No matter: Casey Affleck (and Chuck Maclean) have penned The Instigators for director Doug Liman, coming off of his Road House remake. It’s a heist film, and in addition to Damon and Affleck, there’s a murderer’s row of character-actor talent here: Michael Stuhlbarg, Paul Walter Hauser, Hong Chau, Ving Rhames, Jack Harlow, Alfred Molina, and Ron Perlman.

It looks fun, notwithstanding the line they lifted from The Wire, which has the staff here very upset.

The project comes from Damon and Affleck’s Artist Equity production company — the shingle behind Air — which seeks to make mid-budget films efficiently. This one is going straight to Apple TV+ on August 9th, which seems like a shame. There’s some box-office potential here.