Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have caused controversy after revealing some poor fiscal planning.
As Ben Affleck revealed that the pair blew through their Good Will Hunting cash in months!
It’s pretty crazy!
But let’s start at the beginning, shall we?
Over the years, the Massachusetts-born Damon has grown to become one of Hollywood’s most celebrated actors.
The actor first rose to fame with the 1977 blockbuster, Good Will Hunting.
Alongside his friend and costar, Ben Affleck, Damon both wrote and starred in the movie.
It tells the tale of an unrecognized genius who, as part of a deferred prosecution agreement, becomes a client of a therapist and studies advanced mathematics with a renowned professor.
And Damon and Affleck went on to win an original screenplay Oscar for their debut project.
This was a huge achievement for the life-long friends…
Damon and Affleck met at the age of ten when they lived a couple of blocks away from one another.
They played baseball and Dungeons and Dragons.
And, as adults, went on to pursue a career in acting together.
And, following on from his Good Will Hunting success…
Damon went on to star in a number of other major blockbusters…
Such as Saving Private Ryan, The Talented Mr. Ripley…
And, probably most famously, The Bourne Identity franchise.
And more recently?
Damon was the star in hugely popular movies such as Martian and The Great Wall.
A pretty large amount of success!
But this week, Damon has hit headlines for saying it might not be enough.
He revealed in an interview he regreats turning down one major role!
And, let’s just say, it came at a hefty price.
Back in the day, James Cameron reportedly reached out to Damon.
Cameron wanted Damon as the star of his upcoming movie, Avatar.
And even more amazingly, Cameron offered Damon 10% of the movie’s profits as his paycheck.
Given how successful Avatar was, that’s really gotta hurt!
“I had to turn down Avatar,” he explained.
“James Cameron offered me 10 percent of Avatar if I did it, but I was working on post-production for The Bourne Ultimatum.”
Given the massive profits of Avatar, that means Damon turned down a pretty incredible sum of money.
To the tune of about $250 million.
Ouch!
“I’ve left more money on the table than any actor actually,” he said.
But there’s another big reason for Damon’s regret.
Cameron doesn’t make many movies — so it doesn’t look as though this opportunity will come around again.
“Cameron said to me in the course of that conversation, ‘Well, you know, I’ve only made six movies.’
“I didn’t realise that … I realised in having to say no that I was probably passing on the chance to ever work with him.
“So that sucked and that’s still brutal,” Damon said.
That’s gotta hurt!
However, it’s safe to say that the Bourne movies did serve Damon pretty well.
So maybe we shouldn’t feel too sorry for him?
Damon also revealed in an interview with GQ that there’s one movie he almost didn’t make.
The Bourne Ultimatum, back in 2007, claiming the original script was “unreadable.”
The actor disclosed: “It’s really the studio’s fault for putting themselves in that position.
“I don’t blame Tony for taking a boatload of money and handing in what he handed in. It’s just that it was unreadable. This is a career-ender.
“I mean, I could put this thing up on eBay and it would be game over for that dude. It’s terrible. It’s really embarrassing. He was having a go, basically, and he took his money and left.”
However, the movie ended up being an enormous success, making $444.1 million and bringing in 3 Academy Awards!
And this week, Ben Affleck has revealed another secret about his and Damon’s career.
That the pair blew through their money from Good Will Hunting in a matter of months!
He spoke to Drew Barrymore about their spending habits!
“We sold it for $600,000, we split that, $300,000 each, and then the agents got $30,000 so we had $270,000 and we paid about $160,000 in taxes so we had $110,000, each bought $55,000 Jeep Cherokees and then had $55,000 left,” Affleck said.
“Naturally we decided to rent a $5,000-a-month party house on Glencoe Way by the Hollywood Bowl and we were broke in six months.”
What do you think of the revelation?
