Matching Exes

Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck were photographed yesterday looking like they stepped out of a K-drama because this is a classic K-drama mood with the OTP, your FL and ML will always be styled in similar colours and energy to underscore that they are who we should be rooting for.

Jen and Ben, however, as we know, are no longer a couple. So this is a matching exes outfit. I guess it’s the next level of conscious uncoupling. Or an excuse for the tabloids to rumour that they’re getting back together. Maybe the Daily Mail is already on it with their usual bullsh-t.

They were picking up food, perhaps having dinner with their kids, now that Violet is home after completing her second year at Yale. That’s our daily hit of HOW WHY WFT IS TIME?!

It’s been a pretty low-key gossip year for Ben after the tumult coming out of his divorce from Jennifer Lopez. The Rip was released on Netflix back in January and just a few days ago, he and Matt Damon, through their production company Artists Equity, confirmed that the movie met all the thresholds required to secure a performance bonus for the cast and crew, the first time Netflix has ever agreed to that kind of deal. It makes both of them look very, very good among their peers – which will work well for Matt Damon as he nears the release of The Odyssey and its inevitable award season run. But it also looks good for Ben in tandem with the news that he sold his AI startup, InterPositive, to Netflix for a reported $600 million. (Which might be why he basically just gave his share of the estate they co-own to JLo.)

Ben is one of the few celebrities whose AI involvement hasn’t generated mega backlash, because the way they’ve been messaging it is “additive” AI and “not about replacing creatives” but increasing skillset efficiency – or so they say. InterPositive seems like it could take jobs from the visual effects community, which is already a highly exploited labour unit of Hollywood.

The Artists Equity track record over the last three years or so is an asset here because Artists Equity’s vision is to advance a more competitive compensation structure for filmmakers, and that includes talent, writers, and crew. Since he and Matt have established that their company purpose is to ensure that the artists do have equity, people seem to be approaching the news about InterPositive with more trust – at least so far. Where AI is concerned, cautious cynicism is warranted.

Ben has been in post-production for his next directorial feature for Netflix, Animals, for the last few months and the movie is expected to release some time this year. Given the success of The Rip, presumably Artists Equity will be pushing for the same bonuses with this film, too.

As for Jennifer Garner, she’ll likely soon be doing promotion for Five-Star Weekend. Sarah posted about the trailer for the series a couple of weeks ago, premiering in July. This is an almost all-female cast (plus Timothy Olyphant) and there’s a Golden Girls joke in the trailer so I’m looking for some Golden Girls crossover in the marketing, plus food content. A segment in the Vogue Kitchen seems like a no-brainer.