Ben Affleck and Matt Damon Reteam for Upcoming Netflix Kidnapping Crime Film “Animals”

The longtime friends and collaborators last worked together on 2023's 'Air,' and Affleck will return to direct Damon once again in their latest project

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are at it again!

The longtime friends and collaborators, who last worked together on 2023's Air, are teaming up for Netflix's upcoming kidnapping crime film Animals, the streaming giant announced Thursday.

Affleck, 51, will return to direct Damon, 53, once again in their latest project, from a screenplay penned by Connor McIntyre and Billy Ray. But unlike in Air, Affleck will only play a behind-the-camera role.

Dani Bernfeld has teamed up with the duo to co-produce the film under their Artists Equity banner, while the plot will focus on a politician and his wife who must overcome odds to save their kidnapped son, per The Hollywood Reporter.

A rep for Affleck and Damon did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.

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Related: Matt Damon and Ben Affleck's Friendship Timeline

The Boston natives have been best friends for years, and their bond has led them to collaborate onscreen numerous times, including their Oscar-winning debut Good Will Hunting (1997) and, more recently, with The Last Duel (2021) and their 2023 Nike drama Air.

"Ben has always had an incredible charisma. People are just getting introduced to it through film," Damon told The Los Angeles Times of his friend in 1999. "It's hard to think of your best friend as a movie star, but the fact that he is [stems from] the extent to which parts of the real him come through. He is somebody that everybody wants to be around."

After the success of Good Will Hunting, which won each of them their first Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay, the duo considered going their separate ways professionally — but it didn't quite shake out that way.

"For a while, we thought maybe we should chill and just do other stuff, and not be Matt and Ben, Matt and Ben," Affleck recalled Boston Magazine in a 2013 interview. "We have our company together, we're developing together. And Matt lives down the street from me like he used to. His kids are living with him, the way we used to live with our folks. The only difference is that we have pools."

Related: Matt Damon Says His Friendship with Ben Affleck 'Changed' After His Father Died: We 'Make Every Second Count'

Damon has spoken out multiple times about being directed by Affleck, as far back as during high-school plays.

Talking specifically about the "shorthand" he and Affleck have on set, Damon said in July 2023 on Sunday TODAY with Willie Geist, "What's really great is there's no diplomacy."

"You can waste so much time by trying to be polite," he explained. "In the movie business and in theater, they've developed a whole vocabulary for how to talk to somebody — basically, how to tell somebody they're sucking."

But in Affleck and Damon's case, "We can just say, 'You suck,' " the Oppenheimer actor joked, laughing. "Which is really a gift because you get through the bulls--- faster and you go, 'How do we fix it?' "

"Just tell me I've overacting, you know what I mean?" he added later.

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