Ben Affleck has attempted to dismiss concern around Netflix’s filmmaking process, in response to past comments from his long-term collaborator Matt Damon.
Damon raised eyebrows when he shared several of the streamer’s typical screenwriting requests while promoting this year’s Netflix cop drama The Rip, which he produced and starred in alongside Affleck. Speaking via the Joe Rogan podcast back in January, Damon claimed Netflix had a preference for films to feature a big action sequence in their first five minutes to get viewers hooked, as well as a suggestion that the movie’s plot should be restated several times in dialogue over the course of the film “because people are on their phones while they’re watching.”
Now, Affleck has been asked to comment on Damon’s claim, while promoting yet another Netflix project: the upcoming thriller Animals he stars in alongside Gillian Anderson. Speaking this week at Bloomberg‘s 2026 Screentime event (via The Hollywood Reporter), Affleck suggested Damon had been the victim of a quote taken out of context.
“Somebody went ahead and did a pullquote, and it got picked up once, and it was, ‘Matt Damon says Netflix makes you tell the plot in the first five minutes,'” Affleck claimed. (This is not what Damon said.)
“If you just stop and think about it,” Affleck continued, “I’m in this movie, I’m directing. Even if that were true, do you think I would go on Joe Rogan and be like, ‘They made me put all this obvious s*** in my movie’? Like, it doesn’t even make sense.”
For the record, here’s what Damon said previously in his own words:
“Netflix — the standard way to make an action movie, that we learned, was you usually have three set pieces. One in the first act, one in the second, one in the third — and the big one with all the explosions and you spend most of your money on that one in the third act. That’s your kind of finale. Now, [Netflix is] like, ‘Can we get a big one in the first five minutes?’ We want people to stay tuned in. And it wouldn’t be terrible if you reiterated the plot three or four times in the dialogue because people are on their phones while they’re watching.”
“[Netflix] would never do that,” Affleck continued this week. “I don’t know that I’ve never met anyone who’s had a note that idiotic and brazen — and I’ve heard of a lot of idiotic studio notes. Idiotic studio notes long predate Netflix. This is a business with a long history of executives telling you to do the exact wrong thing that’s going to ruin your movie.”
While Affleck seems certain he has not experienced the kind of interference that Damon described, it’s fair to suggest that as a Hollywood star and former Batman, his projects may be afforded a little more flexibility than others. And there’s the fact that Affleck is intimately tied to Netflix after quietly selling his AI company InterPositive to the streaming service earlier this year for almost $600 million.
Asked about his use of AI elements in Animals, Affleck said he had used the controversial technology for “lots of things” in the film, while declining to state which elements in particular had been AI generated.
“I’m a little bit hesitant to point out what they are — or even talk about it — because in my business, we’re trying to foster the illusion of reality, right?” Affleck concluded. “It’s sort of like if you went to a magic show and the magician walked out and said, ‘Just before I start, I want you to know there’s another bunny under here, this guy’s a plant.’ You know, it’s sort of ruined, right? But yes, we did use it, and in fact, I thought it was a good example [of how to use AI ethically] because it’s a very human movie.”
Animals becomes available to stream via Netflix on October 8. We’ll be watching, if only to see if there’s a big action sequence in the first five minutes.
Image credit: Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
