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Matt Damon Walks the Red Carpet With Wife for the Movie He Had to Leave Behind: Ben Affleck’s ‘Animals’

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Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have been friends for decades. They first met when Damon was 10 and Affleck was 8, and they went on to co-write ‘Good Will Hunting’ while sharing an apartment in Los Angeles. Since then, the pair have turned their friendship into a business, and their latest project is a Netflix thriller called ‘Animals‘.

The story behind that film has an unusual twist. ‘Animals’ was originally built around Damon in the lead role, with Affleck directing. A rights holdup delayed the start of production, and Affleck moved on to ‘The Accountant 2’ first, which pushed the project back.

The delay changed everything. Damon had to drop out of the starring role because of scheduling conflicts with Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’, and Affleck stepped in to play the part himself. Damon stayed on as a producer, though, which brings us to Thursday night.

The Hollywood Reporter shared a 16-second video showing that Damon and his wife, Luciana, joined Affleck at the Los Angeles premiere of ‘Animals’. The clip shows the trio posing together on the carpet in front of the film’s Netflix-branded backdrop, with Damon in a pinstriped suit, Luciana in a bright red pantsuit and Affleck in a navy suit. The event took place Thursday, Oct. 1, at Westwood Village Theater.

Luciana was more than a guest. She is also a producer on the film, and she is a partner at Artists Equity, the production company Affleck and Damon founded. Affleck wrote, directed and stars in the film, while Damon gets a producer credit alongside him.

The cast also turned out. Kerry Washington, Steven Yeun, Luis Gerardo Méndez and Adriana Paz posed with Affleck on the carpet, and Ray Fisher attended too. Gillian Anderson was not at the event.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Affleck joked about Damon’s exit, teasing him for choosing ‘The Odyssey’ over ‘Animals’. The jab has aged amusingly, since ‘The Odyssey’ released July 17, 2026, and has been a box office success. For Damon, the tradeoff paid off, though he still gets to share in the success of Affleck’s film from the producer’s chair.

Washington also joined the project as part of the reshuffle, replacing Jennifer Garner as the female lead. Principal photography began March 7, 2025, in Los Angeles. The ensemble rehearsed for several weeks ahead of shooting, working on location at the Kimballs’ lavish Los Angeles home, according to Netflix.

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‘Animals’ is more than a single film for the duo. Artists Equity was founded in November 2022 with financial backing from Gerry Cardinale and RedBird Capital. Its films include ‘Air’, ‘The Instigators’, ‘Small Things Like These’, ‘Unstoppable’ and ‘The Accountant 2’.

The studio has since signed a first-look streaming deal with Netflix, and Variety reported that Artists Equity will handle creative and production for its movies under that partnership. The same report noted that audiences were loving ‘The Rip’, the Netflix thriller starring both Affleck and Damon, and called ‘Animals’ the next release in the pipeline. Netflix film chairman Dan Lin said the streamer shares the studio’s mission to make bold, original films.

That context gives the premiere extra weight. It is a showcase for the company they built together, and Damon’s presence on the carpet fits the studio’s model, where he is a founding partner even when he is not on screen.

The film follows Mark Kimball (Affleck), a Los Angeles mayoral candidate whose son is kidnapped. Washington plays his wife Abigail, and as the couple scrambles to raise the ransom payment, they are drawn into a web of deception. They are forced to make choices and reveal secrets that could tear their world apart.

The cast also includes Anderson, Yeun, Paz, Méndez, Fisher and Matt Gerald, and the film is rated R with a runtime of 1 hour and 48 minutes. It arrives on Netflix and in select theaters Friday, Oct. 9.

For Affleck and Damon, the premiere was a chance to celebrate a project that ended up looking very different from the original plan. Damon may not be in the film, but he clearly wanted to be there for it.

Should Matt Damon Have Played the Lead in ‘Animals’?

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