Matt Damon Talks Alternate 'Good Will Hunting' Scripts

I've got a huge soft spot for Good Will Hunting.  Anyone that knows me knows why.  I mean, I've got a Good Will Hunting poster hanging in my bedroom as we speak.  Not only is it one of my favorite films, from a film criticism standpoint I can argue its legitimacy as a truly great film.  And that all starts with the script.

Now, some people don't believe Matt Damon and Ben Affleck could have possibly written this script because, to be blunt, Hollywood doesn't believe people under the age of 30 are capable of that level of work behind the camera.  And, from working in Hollywood the last six months, that way of thinking is still unfortunately intact.

In a recent interview with Tom Shone, star and co-writer Matt Damon shared some interesting tidbits about the Good Will Hunting script that involve Terrence Malick, Rob Reiner, and director Gus Van Sant.  One of which involved the death of a major character, and if you're at all a fan of this film this interview is a MUST read.

Damon started out by telling the story of how during a chance encounter with director Terrence Malick (Malick is good friends Ben Affleck's godfather), the director suggested a tweak in their original ending:

"We just asked if we could have a meeting with him. We went to Boston to see him. And we had it in the script that my character and Minnie’s left together at the end of the movie. Terry didn’t read the script but we explained the whole story to him, and in the middle of the dinner, he said, ‘I think it would be better if she left and he went after her.’ And Ben and I looked at each other. It was one of those things where you go: of course that's better. He said it and he probably doesn’t even remember that he said it. He started talking about Antonioni. ‘In Italian movies a guy just leaves town at the end and that's enough.’ And we said of course that’s enough. That’s where we come from. If you just leave that’s a big enough deal. It doesn’t have to build up to anything more."

Damon went on to talk about how their original script had a pretty hefty government subplot (which gets hinted at in the film via the great NSA speech) but Rob Reiner, thankfully, suggested otherwise:

"The original script that we sold had this high concept thing where the government was trying to get Will. Rob Reiner sat with us for a script meeting and said ‘why don’t you guys take all that stuff out?’ Wait a minute. We can do that? ‘Yeah its enough just to make the movie about these guys. That’s a really good movie. That’s what we really love about it.' And we said ‘we thought there was this whole high concept thing.’ ‘No you don’t need any of that’."

So while these confessions might make Matt and Ben out to look like amateurs bumbling their way through a script, this last anecdote shows they still knew what they were doing and even the best filmmakers can have ideas that are just plain bad:

"At one point after Gus [Van Sant] became involved I was shooting The Rainmaker in Memphis and everyone came down for a script meeting. Gus came down and said ‘I want to do a draft where Chuckie, Ben’s character, dies on the construction site.’ And Ben and I were just mortified. ‘What are you talking about’ ‘I want him to get crushed like a bug.’ We said ‘Gus what are you talking about? You can’t just fucking smush Ben. That’s a terrible idea.’ Gus said ‘no I really want to see what would happen.’ So we did a whole new draft on weekends of The Rainmaker, when I wasn’t working, we would write, Ben and I did a whole draft, with a wake and everything. It took a left turn and went into this other place. The scenes in a vacuum I thought were good, but we still didn’t like the idea, then Gus read it said ‘okay its a terrible idea let’s go back to what we had'."

As someone young with experience in Hollywood, I can tell you with 100% certainty that the "high concept" government subplot is what got this script sold.  Even though it was a bad idea, Hollywood loves "high concept" and anything with those two words will get looked at in this industry.  So you can't blame the guys there, and at least they had the smarts to take it out.

I really found the Malick story the most intriguing because his idea was what made the film's ending so perfect.  Having them both leave together wouldn't have taken anything away from the film, but having him go after her alone gave it a little something extra.

And, I'm not even going to waste my time talking about the killing off Chuckie idea.  I mean, come on Gus.

Comments

[Lillian James]

This is cool. It is a great movie; I think all the changes made (and not made) were for the best. Especially the end.

[SEAN]

LOVE THIS MOVIE WITH ALL MY HEART

[Luke]

Good Will Hunting is one of my favorite films. It's interesting to hear about all these possible versions of the film, but thank goodness it turned out the way it did. There was a film I saw in Toronto called White Irish Drinkers that reminded me of all the best aspects of Good Will Hunting. The struggle to both accept and escape your roots is something that really hit close to home for me. Since you're a big fan of GWH you should definitely check out the film when it's released. They just put the poster up at http://blog.moviefone.com/2011/02/07/white-irish-drinkers-poster

[james]

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