I’m not sure there’s an actor in the history of cinema that has required more saving than Matt Damon. I’d never really noticed it before, but one astute Quora user posed a hysterical hypothetical question to the community earlier this year that was more interesting than I ever imagined: “How much money has been spent attempting to bring Matt Damon back from distant places?”
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That’s the kind of question so incredible that I didn’t even need an answer to squeeze some enjoyment from it. But here’s the thing — I got an answer anyway. Quora user Kynan Eng decided to break the question down in terms of both actual, real-life movie budgets and the estimated costs of bringing the fictional characters played by Damon home.
Here’s what he came up with:
Movie Budgets Courage Under Fire: $46m Saving Private Ryan: $70m Titan A.E.: $75m Syriana: $50m Green Zone: $100m Elysium: $115m Interstellar: $165m The Martian: $108m TOTAL: $729m
Fictional Costs [My estimates, costs are in 2015 currency] Courage Under Fire (Gulf War 1 helicopter rescue): $300k Saving Private Ryan (WW2 Europe search party): $100k Titan A.E. (Earth evacuation spaceship): $200B Syriana (Middle East private security return flight): $50k Green Zone (US Army transport from Middle East): $50k Elysium (Space station security deployment and damages): $100m Interstellar (Interstellar spaceship): $500B The Martian (Mars mission): $200B TOTAL: $900B plus change
Nearly a trillion dollars to save various incarnations of Matt Damon. That’s a significant percentage of the U.S. national debt. At least we know that Matt Damon will be doing the saving when he returns as Jason Bourne in 2016.
