Ben Affleck said he couldn’t cast Matt Damon for The Town because his salary was too high. John Phillips/Getty Images, Warner Bros
- Ben Affleck has said that Matt Damon wasn’t in The Town because he couldn’t afford to cast it.
- Damon said on The Bill Simmons Podcast that he would have loved to play the role of Jeremy Renner.
- “Let me tell you the truth, we couldn’t afford Matt Damon by a country mile,” Affleck replied.
Ben Affleck has said he didn’t cast longtime friend and collaborator Matt Damon in his Boston heist film The Town (2010) because the film just didn’t hit the budget.
During an appearance on The Bill Simmons Podcast on Wednesday, the pair reflected on their 40-year friendship and discussed their latest project together, Affleck-directed and in which they both star.
Although the two have become known for their projects together, including ‘Good Will Hunting’ (1997) – for which they won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay – Damon admitted he was a little confused that Affleck hadn’t approached him all his other films to date.
“Well, he didn’t ask me to be in ‘The Town,'” Damon said when asked by Simmons if there were any of Affleck’s projects he’d like to be a part of.
“He gave Renner that role,” he said, referring to the role of hot-headed criminal Jem in the film, which earned Jeremy Renner a Best Supporting Actor nomination at the 2011 Oscars.
However, Affleck explained that getting Damon for the role just wasn’t possible because the actor was raking in so much money at this point in his career.
“Let me tell you the truth, we couldn’t afford Matt Damon by a country mile,” he said. “Matt Damon would have cost what the movie cost, you know what I mean.”
Ben Affleck and Jeremy Renner in The Town (2010). Warner Bros.
When asked by Simmons if that was true, Damon laughed and said, “Back then, yeah.”
Damon explained that he was “doing really well” thanks to his role as an amnesiac spy on the hugely successful “Bourne” series.
In fact, according to Forbes, Damon was paid $10 million for his role in The Bourne Identity (2002) and $26 million for the sequels The Bourne Supremacy (2004) and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007). For “Jason Bourne” (2016), the actor received an additional $25 million, which means that he earned $87 million in the entire film quartet.
Meanwhile, Box Office Mojo reports that The Town had a production budget of $37 million.
Elsewhere in the podcast, Damon also said he would have liked to have starred in another movie called Argo, which Affleck would have directed.
“He didn’t ask me to do ‘Argo,’ which could have ruined the lead role in this film, but he took it on himself,” he said.
Affleck replied, “Could be, yes, but I would have made less money.”
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