Matt Damon and Ben Affleck almost made a gay sports romance years before Heated Rivalry ever existed.
While on the Andy Cohen Live, Damon admitted that he and Affleck almost made a queer baseball movie, but ultimately had to pass on it.
After Andy Cohen teased Damon about playing hockey with Affleck when they were growing up, Damon corrected him and said they actually played Little League Baseball together.
“No, we did not play hockey,” Damon said. “Baseball. I don’t know if you’ve read The Dreyfus Affair, it’s a different sport.”
Cohen was surprised Damon had read the 1992 gay novel by Peter Lefcourt about superstar married shortstop Randy Dreyfus, who falls in love with D.J. Pickett, a Black second baseman on his team. The satirical novel combines romance and comedy and deals with themes of homophobia and racism within professional sports, while drawing parallels to the real-life Dreyfus Affair.
“It’s a great book, of course,” Damon said, before explaining that they almost adapted it into a movie.
Had Damon and Affleck made the film decades ago, it would have been groundbreaking to see an exploration of gay romance in pro sports on screen, especially if the two A-listers had starred in it, as they did with Good Will Hunting.
He continued, “We almost made it years ago. Yeah, the script just wasn’t good enough, but the story is. The book was great.”
Maybe the success of Heated Rivarly will make Damon and Affleck reconsider!
