Sometimes directors have to let go of their ego and recognize when they’re not the right person for the gig. That sums up why Kevin Smith didn’t bother directing Good Will Hunting, because he felt that someone else would have a better chance of turning in a movie that would be worthy of the script and the actors that were cast in it. In other words he put his ego on hold and thought of the story before thinking that he could do it just because he had the influence and the clout. Trying to imagine what the movie would have been like had Smith taken on the project brings up images of Clerks, Mallrats, and perhaps even hints of Dogma with Affleck and Damon’s characters locked in a continual spat, but without the supernatural qualities included. In any case he decided that he didn’t have the right skill set at the time to make it happen and passed it on to Gus Van Sant, who as many people know took the movie and created what would eventually become a cult classic. To be fair the story is one that not everyone loves in a universal manner, but it’s still a compelling and gripping tale that shows the life of a young man that has untold potential but is far more interested in staying comfortable and mastering the domain he knows than being challenged and seeking out something a little more stimulating. Neeraj Chand of MovieWeb has a little more to offer on the subject as far as the movie goes.
But likely we’ve all met someone like Will Hunting in our lives, whether we knew it or not. A person that has such a massive amount of potential but won’t commit to anything since that would mean taking the hard road that offers little more than challenges to the world they’ve built for themselves. To be real, Will wasn’t running so much as he was pushing the world away from him when it became too difficult. He was a smart individual, a genius in fact, but naive and cocky in all the ways that were necessary to keep him from risking too much of himself and taking a chance on a world that might turn around and hurt him the moment his guard was down. He had a group of friends that weren’t exactly lowlifes but also weren’t bound to challenge him all that often since their own intelligence was average but not much past high school level as far as we were shown. In his group Will was the Einstein, the gifted child, someone that, as his friend Chuckie said, “I mean, you’re sittin’ on a winnin’ lottery ticket. And you’re too much of a p***y to cash it in, and that’s b******t.”. In other words he had the potential to have everything, a great career, an education, a woman that loved him, but thanks to the trauma he suffered in the past he’d grown into a person that pushed people away at the first sign of what he perceived as trouble. Come on, his girlfriend wanted him in her life so badly that she asked him to go to California with her, and was a wreck when he rebuffed her for it. Will was a reactionary character with a high IQ, not necessarily a deep and soulful thinker, as it might involve the need for him to open up.
Smith really sidelined himself in a big way for this movie and it’s impressive that he did since at the time he was considered to be a very skilled and reliable player in show business, much as he still is to be fair. But instead of taking the movie and the payday to go with it, he recognized that his skill set at that time was lacking just enough that he didn’t feel that he could bring what was needed for the picture and therefore gave it up to Van Sant, who turned in a great and very emotional picture. A lot of people might not fully understand the need to put your ego on hold every now and then, but it’s usually the mark of someone that’s grown quite a bit in a way that’s hard to explain since it means sacrificing a chance at a golden opportunity that you know isn’t yours. It might sound noble and poetic and all that noise, but it’s also quite practical since it’s better to give a project to someone else that has the right skill set to get it done than to bungle it because your pride wouldn’t allow you to walk away. Thankfully Smith did the right thing at that point and pointed Damon and Affleck towards someone that could give them what they wanted and create something great in return. Not every director thinks with their ego first. John Ridlehoover of CBR has more to say on this matter.
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