Well, that certainly didn’t take long. Only yesterday we reported that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have signed a first look production deal with Warner Bros, and now comes news of what they might be planning to do together at their new production company.
Deadline Hollywood reports that Affleck is attached to direct and potentially star in The Trade, which is based on a true story from the 1970s. Scandal erupted in 1973 when it was revealed that two New York Yankees pitchers, Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich, had decided to swap wives. Although it has started off as a few swinging one-offs, they eventually decided to make the switch permanent. While it was an equitable arrangement that pleased all parties, the public wasn’t quite as understanding. Fritz and Susanne remain a couple till this day, while Mike and Marilyn drifted apart.
So if Affleck is one of the wife-swapping pitchers, who will be the other one? Well, Affleck and Damon have long harboured hopes of bringing the story to the screen, with Affleck eyeing the role of Peterson and Damon the part of Kekich. So it seems that soon we could see Affleck directing himself and best buddy Matt Damon in a film where they plan to trade wives, although in real life I presume they plan to keep their own spouses.
New impetus has been given to the project by Dave Mandel’s screenplay, which Affleck and Damon hired him to write several years ago, but which was delayed by rights issues and Mandel becoming in-demand with the likes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. However the eventual script landed on the 2009 Black List of the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood and is said to have the feel of a Hal Ashby movie. Richard Linklater previously expressed interest in directing the movie (but still with Damon and Affleck in it), but Ben’s decided he’d like the helming gig himself.