Matt Damon is one of the biggest superstars of Hollywood. After all, who won’t love a little bit of the baby-faced, no-nonsense hunk of an actor in their lives? However, for fans of the Bourne franchise, a little Matt Damon is exactly what they got in the 2016 movie, Jason Bourne, in which he starred as Jason Bourne.
A still from the Bourne franchise. Credits: Universal Pictures
While Damon, as he generally is, was the protagonist, leading star, and producer on the movie, he had a grand total of 25 lines of dialogue in the entirety of its 123-minute runtime. For his measly troubles, he received a whopping $25 million, which effectively means that he received a cool $1 million, for each line that came out his mouth in Jason Bourne.
Matt Damon snagged a million dollars per line in Jason Bourne
Matt Damon as Jason Bourne in The Bourne Identity | Universal Pictures
While Bourne as a character was novelist Robert Ludlum’s creation, the 2016 movie in itself was a sequel to 2007’s Bourne Ultimatum and the fifth and final movie of the franchise. Director Paul Greengrass took over the directorial duties from Doug Liman after 2002’s The Bourne Identity, for The Bourne Supremacy (2004), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), and Jason Bourne (2016). However, it was Tony Gilroy who co-wrote and directed 2012’s The Bourne Legacy.
Regardless, the creators had a different take on the ex-CIA agent. They opted for an evolutionary Jason Bourne who was extremely talkative in the first movie, but slowly underwent a solitary, almost lonely journey.
This would make him less talkative, as he eventually lost his tongue and could muster only 25 dialogies throughout the final movie. This was explained by Matt Damon himself: (via SlashFilm)
Well, I’ve done it three times. In the first movie, the Marie Kreutz character is still alive, so Bourne has a sounding board and he’s more confused about who he is and a lot more chatty. Once she dies in the first act of the second movie, it’s really a very lonely character. And we talked about that mostly on the second one. I remember [screenwriter] Tony [Gilroy] writing me an email saying, ‘You do realize what this means? You do realize you’re not going to talk in this movie.’ I said, ‘No, I love that.’
And thus, fans got an almost mum Matt Damon for the series conclusion, as he was no longer unsure about who he was, and was more calculated, almost mourning the death of the love of his life.
Matt Damon could have made an even bigger fortune for this role that he turned down
While Damon undoubtedly got the best return on his salary when it came to Jason Bourne, his humungous star power meant that he was always making bank via the franchise. The actor was known to charge upwards of $25 million for every movie during the 2010s , and made similar amounts for all of the Bourne movies.
However, as he himself revealed (SlashFilm), Damon also once turned down a role that could have easily viewed for the title of the biggest in his career. It was in the form of the character of John Sully in James Cameron’s Avatar, for which he was apparently offered an eye-watering $250 million:
I will go down in history. You will never meet an actor who turned down more money.
Damon is currently known to have a net worth of $55 million, which is again a handsome amount.(Fortune) Still, while the actor expressed little regret over the $250 million role he turned down, there must surely be some nights he spends tossing and turning, wondering exactly what could have been!
The entire Bourne franchise can be watched on Amazon Prime.
