Ben Affleck and Matt Damon Blew ‘Good Will Hunting’ Cash on ‘His & His’ $55K Jeep Grand Cherokees
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have remained close friends after nearly 30 years of Hollywood fame and fortune. Neither has been shy to talk about their humble beginnings. In the late nineties, the roommates wrote the screenplay for “Good Will Hunting” (1997) in their apartment in Eagle Rock. When the pair sold the script, Affleck says he was shocked at the lump sum they were offered. What’s more, they burned through the cash in about six months – and a lot of it was spent on Jeeps.
Affleck and Damon hailed from Cambridge, Massachusetts. They had decided to enter the film industry together, working in commercials and lesser-known projects for years in the late 1980s and early 1990s. At the time, Eagle Rock was cheap to rent in for LA standards. The pair even shared a bank account to help fund their careers as a team, as Affleck told Drew Barrymore on her talk show in 2023.
Affleck explained that he and Damon wrote and then sold “Good Will Hunting” for a clean $600,000. They split the sum, but after agent fees and taxes, they were left with about $110,000 each.
“We each bought $55,000 Jeep Cherokees.”
In multiple interviews promoting the 2023 film “Air,” Affleck and Damon detail their first big purchase after selling the screenplay.
In an IMDb interview, they shared that they both wanted a hunter-green Jeep Grand Cherokee. “It was like the really dope, new truck at the time,” explained Affleck.
In 1997, the Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo 4WD started at $25,545, and trims went up from there. They agreed to each buy one but didn’t want two of the same color. So, how did they decide who got the preferred green Grand Cherokee?
They flipped a coin, and the loser had to buy a black Jeep. “Who got the black one?” Marlon Wayans asked Damon. “Ben,” Damon quickly replied.
After buying the fraternal twin Jeeps, Affleck told Drew Barrymore that they rented a party house in the Hollywood Bowl that shaved $5,000 a month off their earnings. Within six months, he explained, they were pretty much broke again.
Of course, they ended up starring in “Good Will Hunting,” which became a Golden Globe and Oscar-winning film. The rest is his–(and his)–story.
