The heartbreaking story behind Matt Damon’s favourite movie: “An unqualified failure”
In the late 1990s, Matt Damon‘s career was coasting the crest of a wave that began with Good Will Hunting in 1997. That movie made him a leading man after years of struggle, and he followed it up with Saving Private Ryan and The Talented Mr Ripley. However, his ascent soon hit a rough patch when he starred in three box-office disasters, one of which he believed was a masterpiece the studio butchered. In fact, he called the original cut – that no one has ever seen – the favourite movie of his career up to that point and revealed that the heartbreak felt during that production still bothers him to this day.
In these early days of his Hollywood leading man status, Damon admittedly made a few missteps as he tried adjusting to his new industry role. He made a couple of movies that became cult classics, like Dogma and Rounders, but weren’t big hits before Mr Ripley gave him his first bona fide success. Unfortunately, he followed it up with three movies in 2000 that all tanked at the box office: animated sci-fi adventure Titan AE, golf fantasy The Legend of Bagger Vance, and the western All the Pretty Horses.
In 2002, Damon spoke with Movie Habit about this dicey period in his career and was remarkably calm about it. In fact, he insisted that he couldn’t worry about the whims of what the public does and doesn’t want to see at any one time because it’s not something he can control. He was also adamant that one of the movies, while not a roaring success, hadn’t actually lost the studio money. “Yeah, the last two movies I headlined have not been successful, but I think Bagger Vance made its money back,” he mused.
When talk turned to All the Pretty Horses, though, Damon’s tenor changed dramatically. Billy Bob Thornton directed that drama in only his second time behind the camera for a feature film, and it was a big deal to both he and Damon for one specific reason: Cormac McCarthy. After all, this was the first movie adaptation of one of that legendary author’s spare, unforgiving novels. Indeed, two subsequent adaptations – No Country For Old Men and The Road – give a perfect insight into his brutal, lyrical style.
According to Damon, Thornton helmed a very faithful interpretation of McCarthy’s book, which is about unrequited desire and how our harsh world can crush the passion out of young lovers. That wasn’t what notorious Weinstein Company boss Harvey Weinstein wanted from the film, though. So, he had Thornton’s cut altered into a sweeping romantic epic with the tagline “Some passions can never be tamed.”
Damon was disgusted that Weinstein had taken Thornton’s movie away from him and turned it into something it was never intended to be. “The electric guitar became popular in 1949,” Damon told Playboy, referring to the year the story is set, “and the composer Daniel Lanois got an old 1949 guitar and wrote this spare, haunting score. We did the movie listening to his score. It informed everything we did. We made this very dark, spare movie, but the studio wanted an epic with big emotions and violins.”
For Damon, though, the worst part was seeing the toll Weinstein’s meddling took on Thornton. “Billy had a heart problem at that time, and it was because his heart fucking broke from fighting for that film,” an incandescent Damon raged. “It really fucked him up. It still bothers me to this day.”
Ultimately, the theatrical cut of All the Pretty Horses ran one hour and 55 minutes, and it was marketed as a romantic drama starring Damon and Penélope Cruz. It cobbled together a scant $18million at the box office on a budget of $57m, and Thornton’s original two-hour and 42-minute assembly cut has never seen the light of day. A regretful Damon has seen it, though, and he insisted that version “is a masterpiece.”
However, even though Damon still thinks “All the Pretty Horses was an unqualified failure,” he couldn’t shake the artistically fulfilled feeling he had while making it. This is why, in 2002, he said, “It was my favourite movie that I ever worked on.”
