Matt Damon “auditioned and got turned down” for ‘Cutthroat Island’, the infamous movie that killed a studio
It’s been almost 30 years since Matt Damon and Ben Affleck took to the stage at the Academy Awards to collect their ‘Best Original Screenplay’ prize for Good Will Hunting, and neither of them has looked back since.
Obviously, Affleck has had a few stickier moments than Damon, with the former forced to reinvent himself as an acclaimed filmmaker when he made too many bad choices, which left his mainstream viability hanging by a thread. As for the latter, he’s never wavered from his rock-solid run on the Hollywood ladder.
If a director needs a big name to pop up for an uncredited cameo, they call Matt Damon. If they need a recognisable star to play a pivotal supporting role in a production of any size, scope, or scale, they call Matt Damon. If they need a bankable leading man, then they can always call Matt Damon, and that versatility has kept him in the spotlight for the better part of three decades.
It wasn’t always that way, though, which is why he’ll never view anything other than Good Will Hunting as the single most important film of his career. He’d been working solidly up until then, with Courage Under Fire arguably his only real showcase as a performer, but during his struggling up-and-coming days, he dodged a bullet when he flunked an audition for a flop so seismic it killed an entire studio.
While Carolco Pictures was already on shaky financial footing before it had even been released, Cutthroat Island, which set a world record for losing more money than any other picture in cinema history, hammered the final nail into the company’s coffin, making a mockery of its decision to reject Arnold Schwarzenegger and Paul Verhoeven’s Crusades in favour of Renny Harlin and Geena Davis’ swashbuckler.
The inordinately expensive blockbuster’s cataclysmic showing on the big screen did huge damage to Davis’ career, too, and the only reason Matthew Modine was even in it was because everyone else who was offered his part, including Kevin Costner, Keanu Reeves, Liam Neeson, and countless more, turned it down.
Rather embarrassingly, Damon was fresh from 1993’s Geronimo: An American Legend, which everyone told him “was going to be a huge, huge hit and the best thing I could do for my career,” but instead “was a huge bomb” that left him “stuck in LA with no money.” Desperate for any kind of work, he sidled up to an audition, only to inadvertently dodge a bullet.
“I auditioned for Cutthroat Island and got turned down,” he told The Independent. “And I’m not talking about the Matthew Modine role. As a struggling actor, you’re not looking for parts that define you, you’re just looking for work.” Of course, hindsight is always 20/20, and he was much better off without it.
His arch-nemesis, Chris O’Donnell, didn’t even bother auditioning, which says a lot about how Cutthroat Island was viewed by anyone with even a modicum of star power. An educated guess would indicate that Damon put himself forward for the part of Bowen that Christopher Masterson played, since that’s the only role among the main cast that someone in his age range filled.
It was a blow at the time, but in the long run, it was for the best that the infamous disaster didn’t tarnish his still-unknown name.
