Matt Damon and Ben Affleck Plan to Contractually Require a Diverse Cast and Crew in Their Movies

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are adopting inclusion riders in their Pearl Street Films.

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Image via Getty/Eddy Chen

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Matt Damon and Ben Affleck will be committing to diversity in Hollywood by implementing inclusion riders for productions made under their jointly founded company, Pearl Street Films.

The company's head of strategic outreach, Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni, tweeted the announcement in response to Michael B. Jordan's own inclusion rider announcement from last week.

".@michaelb4jordan Thank you for always supporting broader representation in the industry. On behalf of Pearl Street Films, Matt Damon, @BenAffleck, Jennifer Todd, Drew Vinton, & I will be adopting the #InclusionRider for all of our projects moving forward," tweeted Cox DiGiovanni.

With his tweet, he quoted Jordan's tweet about adopting an inclusion rider clause in his own contracts as well as those in his company, Outlier Society.

The inclusion rider clause has been around for years but was popularized when Frances McDormand spoke about it during her acceptance speech at the Academy Awards for Best Actress earlier this month. "I have two words to leave with you tonight, ladies and gentlemen: inclusion rider," she said at the end of her speech. It didn't take long before it became the talk of Twitter as viewers went to discover that an inclusion rider is a clause placed in an actor's (or, in this case, the production company's) contract that requires the production to have a diverse cast and crew.

Now, it seems Matt Damon, who's been under scrutiny for playing a "white savior" role in The Great Wall, and Ben Affleck are joining the fold. Pearl Street Films are responsible for popular films like 2016's Jason Bourne and Manchester by the Sea.

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