Watch Damon and Driver prepare to get medieval in the upcoming action movie.
This isn’t fanfiction portraying Jason Bourne facing off against Kylo Ren. In the above footage from Ridley Scott’s upcoming historical thriller The Last Duel, Matt Damon as Norman knight Jean de Carrouges suits up then rides into a jousting match with Driver‘s character, squire Jacques Le Gris.
The video begins, however, with Jodie Comer as Carrouges’s wife Marguerite. She’s being attended by her ladies-in-waiting and has a battle of her own—to survive after the men fight. The outcome of the clash either sends Comer’s character to her death for lying by claiming Le Gris raped her or upholds her honor.
The story of The Last Duel is based on a real and fascinating historical event.
Matt Damon, Ben Affleck (startlingly blond Count Pierre d’Alençon in the video), and screenwriter Nicole Holofcener adapted their script from American historian Eric Jager’s book, The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat.
Here’s the Random House book synopsis, which gives a pretty thorough breakdown of the story:
In the midst of the devastating Hundred Years’ War between France and England, Jean de Carrouges, a Norman knight fresh from combat in Scotland, returns home to yet another deadly threat. His wife, Marguerite, has accused Squire Jacques Le Gris of rape. A deadlocked court decrees a trial by combat between the two men that will also leave Marguerite’s fate in the balance. For if her husband loses the duel, she will be put to death as a false accuser.
While enemy troops pillage the land, and rebellion and plague threaten the lives of all, Carrouges and Le Gris meet in full armor on a walled field in Paris. What follows is the final duel ever authorized by the Parlement of Paris, a fierce fight with lance, sword, and dagger before a massive crowd that includes the teenage King Charles VI, during which both combatants are wounded—but only one fatally.
The Last Duel premieres in theaters on October 15.