Matt Damon has surely missed a lot of big opportunities in Hollywood, and despite his prolific career and a long roster of impressive films, he had many chances of joining huge franchises, but it was either he did not want them, or his schedule did not permit him.
Fans know Damon from his Bourne movies, the action film franchise that propelled his career to its peak. He also starred in critically acclaimed movies such as Good Will Hunting, The Departed, and Oppenheimer.
Matt Damon Turned Down The Role Of Harvey Dent
Matt Damon revealed in the Happy Sad Confused podcast that he turned down the role of Harvey Dent in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (2008). Two-Face is one of the most iconic and significant villains in the Batman realm, so it’s a puzzle why the actor would consider it a small role.
“Well, Dark Knight was a small role that I was offered. It wasn’t Heath or Christian’s part. There was some other big movie, some big part that I was doing where I was like, ‘Well, I can’t play Harvey Dent, this is a relatively small role, but I am headlining this other thing.’”
Indeed, it was scheduling conflict that hindered Damon from saying yes to Nolan’s movie. The actor did not specify what project he was doing, though fans can assume it was Clint Eastwood’s Invictus, which came out the same year as The Dark Knight.
“But you gotta be sanguine about it and go, ‘It all works out.’ At this point, I passed on the biggest payday in the history [of cinema], accidentally, so I could never do worse financially, I could never commit a worse financial error.”
Interestingly, in this quote, he was referring to James Cameron’s Avatar. He also turned down the movie because he was working on a Bourne film at the time. The most disappointing part was the backend percentage that he would have received given that the movie earned over a billion dollars.
Matt Damon Reportedly Passed On Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man: Homecoming Villain
A report from Jeff Sneider via Popcorn Talk Network revealed that The Martian star also rejected Tom Holland’s Spider-Man villain role.
“The rumor that was sort of playing Hollywood for the last couple weeks was that Matt Damon was gonna be the villain in Spider-man: Homecoming. I’m told he passed, which is disappointing because don’t you think Matt Damon would really benefit from a role like that?”
“They can try to stake me out”: Why Matt Damon is Paparazzi’s Worst Nightmare Unlike BFF Ben Affleck
In an interview with ETimes, the 53-year-old actor said he cannot appear in superhero films despite having a cameo role in Thor: Ragnarok as Actor Loki.
“I can’t do superhero movies! I can’t just do them one after another. Well, I’m getting a little old, you know, for these superhero movies.”
Perhaps he only wanted to play these roles as briefly as possible, and the genre does not really appeal to him. There’s one condition, though, in which he would immediately consider it: Ben Affleck should direct the comic book film.
