Matt Damon probably doesn’t feel much of a competitive streak against his best Hollywood pal. After all, Matt Damon can boast starring in some of the best spy movies ever made with the Jason Bourne movies and gets the opportunity to work with Ben Affleck in plenty of other ways.
That said, when we found out that Damon was offered a role that ended up resulting in one of best Ben Affleck movies, we wonder if he was a little sore about it. The movie in question, The Town, was eventually directed by Affleck and served as one of the best thriller movies of 2010. But why did Damon pass on the role? Well, Affleck certainly had one opinion on the matter.
“Let me tell you the truth: we couldn’t afford Matt Damon,” Affleck said [via The Ringer podcast]. “Matt Damon cost what the movie cost.”
“Back then? Yeah,” Damon joked. “I was in the middle of the Bourne run, and I was doing really well.”
But his rejection of the role didn’t completely boil down to a lack of funding for his paycheck. It was actually to do with the script itself, which Damon admits he didn’t like at all upon reading.
“The thing about The Town was, I remember getting that script, it had a different director, I read the script, and I thought it was terrible,” Damon clarified. Recalling a conversation with his agent, he remembered finding out that Affleck had taken on The Town instead. His reaction was one of horror.
“What the f*ck? No, he can’t. What are you talking about?!” Damon remembered saying to the news. “He’s not going to do it with…” he said, inclining not to mention the name of the original director of the project. When his agent told him that Affleck was going to direct the movie and rewrite the entire script, Damon was relieved.
“Oh, ok, alright, but my gut reaction was, ‘this is a disaster,’ and don’t let him do it because the script that I had read was so bad. But [Ben] did a comprehensive, page one rewrite on the thing.”
For more on Hollywood’s favorite duo, take a look at our thoughts on their recent collaboration with our Air review. You can also see how Hollywood has spent around $900 billion rescuing Matt Damon, and why Ben Affleck says Matt Damon was the biggest reason why he quit the DCEU.
You can also take a look at all the new movies coming out this year, and see how many times each of these guys appears on our list of the best movies of all time. (Don’t forget about our list of the best Matt Damon movies, too!)