#project-greenlight

Now here’s a reboot we can get behind: After a decade-long hiatus, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are reviving their pioneering reality series, Project Greenlight, where the two pluck one lucky aspiring filmmaker and give them the resources to realize their dream: making a movie. Greenlight’s original three-season run, from 2001 to 2005, was addictive reality television, not to mention one of the best behind-the-scenes depictions of the various battles and dramas that go down on a movie set. (Just imagine if Fox released a Project Greenlight-stylereality show about the famously troubled production of Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four — it would have been this summer’s highest-rated series.)

This new teaser for the show’s overdue fourth season suggests that, ten years later, Greenlight’s still got it; barely 15 seconds in, this year’s chosen director, Jason Mann, approaches Affleck and Damon with an age-old Hollywood request: Fire the writer. “This is the battle,” Mann goes on to say, which means he’s going to be in a fighting mood for most of the season. That’s bad news for Matt and Ben, but great news for Project Greenlight fans. It’s also an illustration of one of the Hollywood lessons this classic series has taught us: The writer almost always gets screwed over. Here are five more key things we’ve learned about Hollywood from Project Greenlight.        

1. Chris Moore and Ben Affleck Are the Real Dynamic Duo Forget Matt Damon: The breakout star of Greenlight’s original run — and Affleck’s natural co-star — was producer Chris Moore, who was a constant presence on set while his more famous friends were off, you know, making their own movies. A garrulous, straight-shooting guy, Moore tried to keep the inexperienced first-time filmmakers on point and on task, and he mostly succeeded. When they strayed from the path, you can bet they felt his wrath. But besides cracking the whip, Moore also kept us cracking up, particularly whenever he and Affleck were sharing the screen, and the new Batman seized the opportunity to mimic his pal. Sadly, Moore apparently isn’t returning for Season 4, so here’s to him nabbing the role of Robin in Affleck’s standalone Batman movie.

2. Never Let Them Make You the Fall Guy By all appearances, Greenlight’s first-season feature Stolen Summer was a troubled production from the get-go, with the combination of an untested writer/director (Pete Jones) and questionable material giving Moore plenty of reasons to worry. The target of his real and imagined fears quickly became co-producer Jeff Balis, who made it easy for his boss to designate him as the scapegoat via his multiple screw-ups. At the end of the eighth episode, Moore memorably kicked Balis to the curb… although he reversed that decision 24 hours later. The novice producer learned his lesson and spent the remaining episodes laying low. Then, when Stolen Summer eventually came and went from theaters, Jones got the blame rather than Balis.  

3. Shia LaBeouf Used to Be Genuinely Cool These days, a LaBeouf-centric reality series would have to be closer in tone to The Surreal Life and/or Intervention. But the actor was still a fresh-faced rising star when he appeared on Season 2 of Project Greenlight, fresh off the set of his Disney Channel series, Even Stevens. LaBeouf had been cast as the lead in that season’s movie, The Battle of Shaker Heights, and his youthful enthusiasm enlivened both that film and the Greenlight set. That Shia LaBeouf was someone we wanted to see more of. The current one is someone we’d like to see get some help.  

4. Horror Is Where the Money Is After disappointing creative and financial results with Stolen Summer and The Battle of Shaker Heights, the Greenlight crew went into Season 3 specifically looking for something commercial… much to the chagrin of Affleck and Damon. That’s how they wound up making the horror flick, Feast, which more than doubled the gross of the previous movies. (Feast also spawned two sequels, both of which went directly to DVD. Still, you never saw any demand for Stolen Summer 2: Stealing Home.) Based on the teaser, it appears that Season 4’s film is going to be a comedy. Maybe they could throw in some zombies?  

5. Bring Your Dad to Set Season 3 director John Gulager proved himself a good son by making room in the film and on set for his father, Clu, a veteran character actor prone to uttering gravelly words of wisdom like the ones we hear in the below clip. Beyond sharing memories of his own Hollywood experience, the elder Gulager always had his kid’s back when the production seemed to be slipping out of his control. Remember aspiring filmmakers: nobody will fight harder to protect your vision that Mom and Dad. Especially if they’re also in the movie.