Matt Damon & Ben Affleck Show Good Will, Pledge To Use Inclusion Riders

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck — the men responsible for inclusive works such as Good Will Hunting, Argo, The Town, and Manchester by the Sea — have made a move towards diversity. Their production company Pearl Street announced Monday night that it will employ inclusion riders in all future production deals, Variety reports.

"On behalf of Pearl Street Films, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Jennifer Todd, Drew Vinton & I will be adopting the #InclusionRider for all of our projects moving forward," Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni, the head of strategic outreach for Pearl Street, announced via Twitter. In her announcement, DiGiovanni thanked Michael B. Jordan. Jordan declared in early March that his company Outlier Society Productions would also adopt inclusion riders moving forward — Jordan's move inspired Pearl Street company's decision.

The idea of inclusion riders is somewhat new to the general public, thanks to Frances McDormand, who implored actors to use them at the 2018 Academy Awards. Simply put, an inclusion rider is an optional contract addition that enforces a specified degree of diversity on a film or television project. Stacy L. Smith, the USC communications professor who co-created the idea of an "inclusion rider," told Refinery29 that the terms of the inclusion rider are flexible.

"It’s not that rigid. It’s not like you need to have four women for these 20 roles. Rather, we strongly encourage you to build this diverse hiring pool, and then to look for opportunities to hire highly qualified folks from underrepresented groups in such a way that you’re matching the demographics of the world that you’re living [in]," Smith explained.

An inclusion rider can't fix the system, but it can boost the signal of those who don't typically appear on screen. Thus far, Michael B. Jordan's company and Pearl Street company are the first companies to declare publicly their intention to adopt inclusion riders.