Matt Damon Once Shared the Bulk of Money He Made in His Career Came From These 2 Movies
Matt Damon has been able to make a nice living in the film industry since his Good Will Hunting days. But there were two franchises in particular he felt made up the majority of his net worth.
Matt Damon once made the most of his money from these 2 movies
Damon has had a very lucrative career having starred in several successful film projects. But he credited two of his most well-known franchises for the financial stability that he’s enjoyed.
“The bulk of the money I’ve made in my career was from the Bourne and Oceans movies, but I never felt I was selling out on those movies or that I had to compromise,” Damon once told What’s On.
Damon has always spoken on how the success of the Bourne movies helped him do other meaningful films.
“The Bourne movies have just changed my career completely and made it possible for me to do all the movies I’ve basically wanted to do,” Damon once told IGN. “And between The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy— I did two Oceans movies — but I mean, between Supremacy and Ultimatum, the scripts that I read were Syriana, The Departed and The Good Shepherd. They were easily the best scripts I’d read, but none of those movies, on the face, would seem like they’d make a nickel at the box-office.”
According to Stylecaster, Damon earned $10 million for The Bourne Identity. The Bourne Supremacy and its sequel The Bourne Ultimatum netted Damon $26 million each. The fourth film in the franchise, Jason Bourne, gave Damon $25 million for his efforts.
Matt Damon’s ‘Bourne’ and ‘Ocean’s’ movies helped save his career
Damon found his career floundering a bit before Ocean’s and Bourne came his way. The early 2000s saw Damon starring in a string of critically panned features. At the time, even The Bourne Identity’s future wasn’t looking too healthy.
“I was off that list you want to be on,” Damon once told Playboy. “The Legend of Bagger Vance tanked. All the Pretty Horses really tanked. And everyone in the industry was whispering, ‘I heard The Bourne Identity is in trouble’ because we had done two rounds of reshoots and the release had been postponed. I thought, ‘Well, this f***ing movie is gone, and that’s three movies in a row that I’ve tried to headline, so that’s it.’”
Damon felt that Bourne Identity potentially failing would’ve meant the end of his career, which he found peace in. Ocean’s 11, however, became one of the first hits Damon had in a while. Still, he wasn’t the lead, and had to share screen time with other stars like George Clooney and Brad Pitt. It wasn’t until The Bourne Identity that Damon really started regaining his momentum.
“I was in London doing the last performance of the play This is Our Youth, and The Bourne Identity opened in America on a Friday. Saturday morning I was awakened by this flurry of excited phone calls from LA: ‘Oh my God, it’s a f***ing hit!’ By Monday I had 30 big movie offers,” he remembered.
Matt Damon came to a stunning realization that no actor is secure in the film business
The challenges Damon faced in his career showed the actor how much of a gamble the film industry really was. The Oppenheimer star soon discovered that no actor, no matter how big, was guaranteed a spot in cinema.
“It’s a stunning realization that nobody is secure in this business,” he said. “You start to meet people who can’t pay their mortgages and you think, but you were on the cover of Premiere eight years ago. And you assume that Tom Cruise is secure, but I guarantee you that guy isn’t secure either, because there are always footsteps behind you.”
