тιтus Welliver, who garnered acclaim for his performance in the series Bosch, is one of Hollywood’s most underrated actors, balancing his time with a myriad of supporting roles in films like Transformers: Age of Extinction. However, Welliver’s greatest run occurred in the 2010s with a string of Ben Affleck films that only fizzled out after a disastrous box office flop.

That flop in question is Live by Night, an Affleck pᴀssion project that was commercially panned upon its release and put the actor’s directorial career on hold until his 2023 return with Air. Welliver, who stars alongside Affleck, has little to do in this washed-up thriller that ended a nine-year creative streak with the Good Will Hunting actor and screenwriter.

тιтus Welliver Had Great Roles In 3 Consecutive Ben Affleck-Directed Movies

Welliver’s Performances Always Managed To Steal The Show

From 2007-2012, тιтus 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.

In The 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 (тιтus Welliver), who’ll stop at nothing to capture and arrest MacRay’s gang before their next score.

Though The Town proved more commercially successful than Gone Baby Gone, it wasn’t until Argo that Affleck achieved Oscar-winning acclaim. Based on the true story of a covert CIA operation to extract six Americans during the Iran hostage crisis, Argo sees Welliver in a small but memorable role as a Washington higher-up discussing 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, тιтus Welliver and Ben Affleck’s nine-year collaboration ended once Live by Night lumbered 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.

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 Night isn’t all to blame—Affleck was going through a messy divorce and suffering from addiction problems around the time, and now—with The Accountant 2‘s recent streaming success—we may well see the two collab again.