Matt Damon Wants to Make a ‘Rounders’ Sequel

Matt Damon wants to make a Rounders sequel.

The 53-year-old actor starred in the 1998 cult classic with Edward Norton as two friends who need to win at high-stakes poker in order to quickly pay off a large debt, and he revealed both he and his co-star are keen to make a follow-up film to explore how the world surrounding the game has changed in recent years.

Speaking on The Rich Eisen Show about the projects he wants to make via his and Ben Affleck’s production company Actors Equity, he said: “The one we’ve been talking about for years, and we’re trying to, and I just saw Edward Norton a few weeks ago, like all of us want to do it is a second Rounders movie.

“So much has happened in the poker world in the last 25 years, it would be fun to catch up with those guys.”

Damon revealed the film’s original writers, David Levien and Brian Koppelman, had an idea for a sequel in the pipeline a decade ago, but it would need updating now.

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He added: “They had a whole movie ready to go then, but now there’s been a whole another change in the poker world since then, so I haven’t talked to them about what it would be, but I know … what they had 10 years ago was fantastic, and I’m sure they could augment and roll with the times and update it to where we are today and make something great.”

However, The Instigators actor admitted there are rights issues at play that could prevent the film from happening.

He said: “You’ve got to figure out the chain of title and who owns it, and everybody’s got their hand in the pot. So we’ve got to figure out a way to make a deal that makes sense for everybody, particularly the people who are going to make the movie because at Artists Equity, that’s who we care about, are the cast and crew. We’re trying to figure that out because I think we’d all like to do that.”

While Rounders didn’t perform well at the box office on release, Damon thinks there’s an appetite for a sequel.

He said: “That’s one of those movies that, it came out and didn’t do well. When it came out, it kind of bombed, and then it got discovered by people later. When that happens, people feel a sense of ownership, like, ‘Hey, that’s my movie. I was a champion of that movie even when no one else was.’ So it feels like there’s a lot of good will behind it. But we gotta figure out if we can make it happen.”