The movie Matt Damon rejected that Ben Affleck ended up directing: “I dismissed it out of hand”
Every actor has a movie they rejected that ended up being a huge hit for someone else. Fortunately for Matt Damon, though, one film he dismissed out of hand didn’t just become a hit for any other actor—it became one of his best pal Ben Affleck’s defining films. In fact, this 2010 crime epic was Affleck’s second directorial effort, and it certified his status as one of Hollywood’s most exciting actor/director combos.
Ever since bursting onto the scene in the mid-’90s, Damon’s rise to the top of the Hollywood mountain has been swift and enduring. He is one of the industry’s most beloved and trusted leading men thanks to iconic roles in the likes of Good Will Hunting, The Martian, The Departed, the Ocean’s Eleven trilogy, and, of course, his defining turn as amnesiac super spy Jason Bourne. However, he has also been open and honest about the movies he has said “no” to over the years – and some of them could have been pretty iconic, too.
For instance, Damon was courted by Ang Lee to play the role that eventually went to Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain. He was intrigued by the script, but because he had recently made The Talented Mr Ripley and All the Pretty Horses, he felt he’d be covering similar territory, telling Playboy, “I just did a gay movie and a cowboy movie. I can’t do a gay cowboy movie right now.” Ultimately, he felt the right man got the job, saying, “Heath Ledger was magnificent.”
Damon also turned down the chance to play Captain Kirk’s father in JJ Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek reboot. Abrams said he declined in “the most gracious and understandable and logical” way, telling the director he was too busy to play the part. Similarly, if scheduling hadn’t scuppered the idea, Damon would’ve played Harvey Dent/Two-Face in The Dark Knight. Aaron Eckhart took the part when Damon admitted he couldn’t swing it, and Damon told MTV, “Look, Aaron is a great actor, so the movie didn’t suffer for it. Every now and then, you get one, and you can’t do it.
Interestingly, Damon has also turned down a few roles that his buddy Affleck took – but only one that he also directed. After being offered Paycheck and Daredevil and saying “No thanks” to both, Damon watched as Affleck took the roles and was lambasted by critics for them. Perhaps this played on his mind years later when a script came across his desk that he was distinctly unimpressed with. In 2012, he told The New York Times, “The Town…was a script that was around. I read it. It got sent to me. And I dismissed it out of hand.”
To his horror, Damon later heard that Affleck was circling The Town, and he probably had flashbacks to his pal’s career getting dragged through the mud after making dodgy material choices. He phoned Affleck and said, “Are you out of your mind? The script isn’t good.” To his surprise, Affleck admitted that the screenplay needed work but added, “Here are the six things I’m going to do.”
At this point, Affleck had only directed one previous film – 2007’s Gone Baby Gone, which he also co-wrote with high school friend Aaron Stockard. His screenwriting efforts went back a lot further, though, as Damon knew all too well. After all, they won the ‘Best Original Screenplay’ Academy Award for their breakthrough film Good Will Hunting.
Affleck’s confidence in his plan to reshape The Town reminded Damon of how good his friend had always been at identifying what was wrong with films. In some ways, he believes Affleck has been directing since their teenage years. He has many memories of emerging from the cinema, whereupon Affleck would regale him with all the ways the film they saw could be tweaked and improved.
In the end, The Town was no Paycheck or Daredevil. It made $154million at the box office, was chosen by the National Board of Review as one of the ten best films of the year, and Affleck’s co-star Jeremy Renner landed an Oscar nomination for ‘Best Supporting Actor.’
Not bad for a movie Damon dismissed out of hand.
