Titus Welliver, who garnered acclaim for his performance in the seriesBosch, is one of Hollywood’s most underrated actors, balancing his time with a myriad of supporting roles in films likeTransformers: Age of Extinction. However, Welliver’s greatest run occurred in the 2010s witha string of Ben Affleck films that only fizzled out after a disastrous box office flop.
That flop in question isLive by Night, an Affleck passion project that wascommercially panned upon its releaseand put the actor’s directorial career on holduntil his 2023 return withAir. Welliver, who stars alongside Affleck, has little to do in this washed-up thriller that ended a nine-year creative streak with theGood Will Huntingactor and screenwriter.
Welliver’s Performances Always Managed To Steal The Show
From 2007-2012,Titus Welliver appeared in three hit films directed by Ben Affleck; the first,Gone Baby Gone, saw the actor star as the uncle of a kidnapped girl who hires a P.I. to find her. Though it made modest returns at the box office, the film garnered widespread critical acclaim, rivaled only by Affleck’s follow-up feature,The Town.
InThe Town, Ben Affleck stars as Doug MacRay, the leader of a small-time crew of bank robbers that find themselves thrust into one last violent heist. In their pursuit are FBI agents (Jon Hamm) and Dino Ciampa (Titus Welliver),who’ll stop at nothing to capture and arrest MacRay’s gang before their next score.
ThoughThe Townproved more commercially successful thanGone Baby Gone, it wasn’t untilArgothat Affleck achieved Oscar-winning acclaim. Based on the true story of a covert CIA operation to extract six Americans during the Iran hostage crisis,Argosees Welliver in a small but memorable role as a Washington higher-updiscussing how to navigate such a delicate situation.
Live By Night Was A Disappointing End To Welliver & Affleck’s Streak
Their Collab Ended Not With A Bang, But With A Whimper
In an unfortunate twist, Titus Welliver and Ben Affleck’s nine-year collaboration ended onceLive by Nightlumbered into theaters in late 2016,grossing only $22 million on a $65 million budget worldwide. The shuffling, slow-moving plot follows Affleck as a 1920s bootlegger whose mentor, Tim Hickey,is played by Welliver in a criminally underutilized performance.
Despite its less-than-stellar status, however,Live by Nightisn’t all to blame—Affleck was going through a messy divorce and suffering from addiction problems around the time…
Nine years later, Welliver and Affleck have yet to reunite since their collaboration ended so abruptly. Despite its less-than-stellar status, however,Live by Nightisn’t all to blame—Affleck was going through a messy divorce and suffering from addiction problems around the time, and now—withThe Accountant 2’s recent streaming success—we may well see the two collab again.
