{"id":657648,"date":"2026-06-25T14:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T14:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/657648\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T14:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T14:40:12","slug":"the-2-billion-role-matt-damon-almost-walked-out-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/657648\/","title":{"rendered":"The $2 billion role Matt Damon almost walked out on"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Matt<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ YouTube Still<\/p>\n

Thu 25 June 2026 9:14, UK <\/p>\n

When an actor becomes synonymous with a role, it can be difficult to imagine any other star playing the part. <\/p>\n

Similarly, it\u2019s also almost impossible to remember a time before the movie was released, so it\u2019s extremely hard to put yourself in the shoes of the people making it. Back then, you see, they likely had no idea they were making something that would become an indelible part of culture \u2013 they were just trying to make a film, which is gruelling at the best of times. <\/p>\n

In truth, this perfectly describes a movie Matt Damon<\/a> made that would come to define him, yet he almost quit before cameras even rolled on the notoriously troubled production.<\/p>\n

In the early 2000s, Damon\u2019s career was at a crossroads. He burst onto the scene with Good Will Hunting in 1997 and then enjoyed his first hit as a leading man in 1999\u2019s The Talented Mr Ripley. However, he also made some questionable pictures in that period, including flops like All the Pretty Horses<\/a>, The Legend of Bagger Vance, and Dogma. His bona fides as a movie star were already in question only a couple of years after his breakthrough, and he needed his next film to hit in a big way.<\/p>\n

The stakes could hardly have been higher. While Damon had already established himself as a gifted actor, he had yet to prove he could anchor a major action franchise, making The Bourne Identity a pivotal moment in determining the direction of his career.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>Credit: Far Out \/ United International Pictures<\/p>\n

So, Damon signed up for two movies: Steven Soderbergh\u2019s Ocean\u2019s Eleven, a star-studded remake of the classic \u201960s Rat Pack heist movie, and The Bourne Identity, a spy thriller based on an old Robert Ludlum novel. Bourne, in particular, would rest entirely on Damon\u2019s shoulders and would require him to change his body and learn extensive fight choreography. It was a gamble, but one he was willing to take \u2013 as long as the script was right.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the screenplay turned out to be a much tougher nut to crack than anyone anticipated. The third act proved problematic, but screenwriter Tony Gilroy was unavailable to make the necessary changes, so William Blake Herron was brought in to punch things up. However, by the time Damon touched down in France to start shooting, the script he was handed was \u201cunrecognisable\u201d from the Gilroy draft he had loved.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe writer who got hired to come in went back to the book and did a page one re-write of Tony\u2019s stuff,\u201d Damon explained to Movie Habit. The problem with this was that neither Damon, Gilroy, nor director Doug Liman actually liked Ludlum\u2019s book. In fact, they considered it so retrograde and passe that Liman told Gilroy to simply write an entirely new script around the very basic concept of a man with amnesia, discovering the only thing he knows how to do is kill people. <\/p>\n

Herron\u2019s rewrite, to Damon\u2019s dismay, \u201cbecame the exact kind of movie I would pass on, that I don\u2019t want to do and that I avoided doing because there was the perfect number of explosions and everything.\u201d While he admitted that it was a good action script, and Herron likely accomplished what he was told to do by the studio, it simply wasn\u2019t the movie any of the three main creatives envisioned making. <\/p>\n

Suddenly, the production was in deep trouble because the cast and crew were already on location, and nobody knew what script they\u2019d be shooting. This was in October 2000, and Damon had a hard-out looming in February when he would need to leave to shoot Ocean\u2019s Eleven. \u201cWe were under the gun,\u201d Damon confessed before admitting that a strike was also looming over the production. \u201cIf it hit, we wouldn\u2019t have time to finish Ocean\u2019s Eleven,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

It looked for a while like Damon might need to walk away from The Bourne Identity<\/a>, but Gilroy saved the day by agreeing to rewrite the script again. He wound up faxing new pages to Liman and Damon almost daily throughout production, and reshoots were needed to bring the movie past the finish line. However, Damon claimed the process wasn\u2019t as much of a nightmare as the press claimed. He admitted it was a struggle, but no more than on most high-pressure productions. <\/p>\n

He shrugged, \u201cWe just eventually went back and finished Tony\u2019s script because that was the script we had all wanted to make and that the studio signed off on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their perseverance proved worthwhile. The Bourne Identity not only revitalised the spy genre but also transformed Damon into one of Hollywood\u2019s most bankable leading men, spawning one of cinema\u2019s most acclaimed action franchises, netting over $2billion over the years. Given how close the project came to falling apart before filming had properly begun, its eventual success stands as a reminder that some of the industry\u2019s greatest achievements emerge from its most troubled productions.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ YouTube Still Thu 25 June 2026 9:14, UK When an actor becomes synonymous with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2828,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-657648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-matt-damon","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}