Monday, February 2, 2009

Cinematic Crush: Ben Affleck

Crush object: Ben Affleck, actor/director/writer/ producer.

- Roles in School Ties and Dazed and Confused led to Mallrats, his first collaboration with writer/director Kevin Smith. Their subsequent films together include Chasing Amy, Dogma and Jersey Girl, plus cameos in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Clerks II.

- He and his best friend Matt Damon hit the big time with their surprise hit Good Will Hunting. In addition to co-starring in the film, they won the Academy Award for their screenplay. The duo also produced the filmmaking reality series Project Greenlight.

- Subsequently, he went on to star in both action epics (Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, The Sum of All Fears) and indie fare (Shakespeare in Love, Boiler Room, Bounce), not to mention such notorious bombs as Reindeer Games, Daredevil and Gigli.

- He regained critical respect with his Golden Globe nominated portrayal of George Reeves in Hollywoodland and his feature directorial debut Gone Baby Gone.

- Next up, he co-stars in this week's rom com He's Just Not That Into You, plus the thriller State of Play and the comedy Extract, both due later this year.

1 comment:

akirakid said...

As a fan of Daredevil, I wouldn't classify it as a bomb. Especially for a film with a budget of $78 mil, that grossed $179 mil worldwide, had an opening weekend of $45 mil and stayed at number 1 two weeks in a row back in February 2003. It may not have been embraced all critics, but even Roger Ebert called it "one of the best examples of the super-hero genre" and "the answer to all the problems [he] had with 'Spider-Man'".