Ben and Matt are not the VIPs

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s film, The Rip, premieres on Netflix on Friday and as Sarah wrote in her post about it recently, this looks like a solid crime drama, an action movie with a real plot starring big name movie stars that’s disappearing from theatres, which is too bad and also the normal reality.

Over the last few days Ben and Matt have been making headlines for the backend bonus deal that they negotiated through their company, Artists’ Equity, with Netflix for all members of the cast and crew. As reported in the New York Times, should the film perform well over the next 90 days, all 1,200 production members would receive a one-time bonus. This type of incentivising is a foundational pillar for Artists’ Equity, essential to their projects from the company’s inception.

I have questions though. Not that I want to be a bummer at the party but my first thought when I heard about this is that as well-intentioned as it is, we’re dealing with a streamer, the most successful streamer, that’s been criticised in the past for a lack of transparency about viewership and numbers and etc etc. To be fair, they’ve gotten better at reporting *some* data but also more opaque about other stats and subscriber numbers. So it’s not like we’re getting all that much detail about how, exactly, The Rip’s performance will be measured and what it will be measured against.

It was acknowledged in that NYT article that, of course, no one is expecting the movie to reach Kpop Demon Hunters status so what’s the formula for “success to bonus”? I’m assuming that Ben, Matt and Artists’ Equity have a target or have agreed upon a target but that, to my knowledge, has yet to be disclosed. So how might this help other filmmakers who might want the same deal or similar? Yes, sure, they can discuss privately among their peers and I’m sure Ben and Matt would put it out there on the whisper network or whatever group chat they have but if we’re talking about fundamental industry change in compensation as streamers are now the powerhouses, to find some kind of modern equivalent to backend bonuses that existed during the era of studio dominance. What is the threshold that has to be crossed at Netflix to be considered a “box office hit” where the bonus kicks in?

These are boring questions, though, and not the kind of gossip that bite-sized and Tiktok-able. So the primary takeaway is that this is a good look for Ben and Matt right now. To the audience and the industry it looks like they’re filmmakers and bosses who are looking out for the crew, and I do believe that they are trying to be creative, trying to find solutions, trying to get people paid. My cynicism is more directed at the actual interests and motivations of the people and corporations they’re negotiating with, who have already shown that they don’t actually prioritise the wellbeing of the creative class. 

Anyway, if we’re talking about performance and bonus, part of that is the hustle, the promotion. And Ben and Matt have been on the press tour for The Rip together – doing joint interviews showcasing the banter we’ve become familiar with over the last 25 years; a four-minute Boston accent bit on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon (it went on for too long); the premiere last night in New York, during which one of Matt’s daughters clowned him for the way he was posing.

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That would have been a better four-minute segment: please list off all the ways you are uncool to your children. Then again, even though they’re Ben and Matt, they were definitely not the coolest people on the team. We’ve already established that Teyana Taylor was there so, automatically, everyone is a regular degular by comparison. Plus Steven Yeun was present, which means if there is a second place to Teyana, it would be him. At least on the human side.

If we’re including all species, though, a king was among them: WILBUR THE BEAGLE.

Wilbur is a member of the cast. He was on the carpet too. And he provided so much entertainment, even when he was bored, LOL. Look at this baby’s gorgeous face!

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Wilbur is a fine looking beagle. And I know about fine looking beagles since I’ve lived with three of them, and two of them currently. Jacek, my husband, gets puffy about our beagles – in his mind they are the greatest beagles of all time, even when a beagle won Best in Show a few years ago, he’d scoff and insist that our beagles were cuter than the champion. (I told him he was being absurd because though I love our boys, my eyes are honest – one of them has a weird body and his eyes are too far apart, the other is a clumsy mess.) But not even he can pretend that Wilbur isn’t superior.

What happens to the dog in this movie? All I’m saying is that Ben and Matt better not John Wick this dog. If they John Wick this dog, they will never know peace again.