The Air premiere was always going to be a high profile event, given that the film is directed and produced by Ben Affleck, alongside his best friend Matt Damon, and also stars Viola Davis, Chris Tucker, Jason Bateman, and more. But in addition to the ensemble, there were so many other celebrities there. Like even Charlie Hunnam, who isn’t exactly a red carpet regular, put on his Gucci tracksuit and went to screen the movie. 

 

Air is currently sitting at 100% right now on Rotten Tomatoes. That’ll probably come down when more reviews get added but so far, the top critics and the trades seem to be of the consensus that Air definitely gets up there, with IndieWire going so far as to say it’s “one of the best sports movies ever made”. And most agree that it’s the performances that really make it special – which, for Ben Affleck, seeing as he’s the director, and the heart and soul of the film is Viola Davis… well…. on the one hand you could say that it's not hard to direct Viola Davis, and on the other, you better f-cking bring your A+ game when you’re directing Viola Davis. According to Viola, it was one of the best experiences of her career. 

So it’s no wonder that Ben was feeling himself last night. He was in great spirits on the carpet with the media – you can tell from this interview with The Hollywood Reporter, this is a man who’s riding a pretty smooth wave right now. 

 

It’s a good answer, what he says about Michael Jordan when asked if MJ has seen the film and what he thinks. Nobody needs Ben Affleck to be speaking about Michael Jordan, which is why he doesn’t. He does, however, speak freely about Matt Damon (who brought his entire family to the premiere) and directing his best friend for the first time. These two have known each other forever, they broke out together, but the way we perceive their careers is entirely different. And this was, as Ben told THR in his cover interview a couple of weeks ago, by design – because when they were starting out and became successful after Good Will Hunting, they were advised to carve out individual paths, to not be known as a creative pair… which they seem to have some regrets about. 

“We fell prey to this idea that, “Well, if you don’t individuate your careers and do your own things, people will always associate you together. That will be limiting.”

 

Those limits clearly aren’t an issue anymore. They’ve founded a new production company, Artists’ Equity, and their first project, Air, is getting all this buzz. We’ll see though if the box office matches up to the critical response. And if it doesn’t, how they pivot as performers and business partners from there. 

Until then, Ben is doing the most to sell the sh-t out of this though. There’s been doing a lot of press (he was just on Smartless, I haven’t listened to the episode yet) and his wife came out last night to help, playing the part of First Lady of Artists’ Equity. As we have seen, JLo loves being Ben’s cheerleader, she’s always been his biggest fan. And together they put on a show last night – posing, hugging, kissing… 

Same energy as it was 20 years ago only this time around, both of them seem to be equally invested. It’s not just JLo doing all the emotional supporting. During his remarks at the screening, Ben made a point of shouting out his wife. 

 
 

I wish we could see her face and how she reacted because, as we all know, JLo loves love. She must have been LIVING!