Matt Damon Reveals What Makes Him 'So Depressed' About Movies
The Oscar winner opens up about his biggest frustration with modern cinema and why he believes the film industry has lost its way, despite his own participation in the trends he criticizes.
Wealthy actors who earn millions per film and boost their income through producing deals rarely voice career complaints. Yet Matt Damon has harbored one particular grievance about Hollywood for years, and it continues to eat at him.
His frustration isn't without merit, though there's some irony in his position. He's participated in the very trends he despises, albeit as favors to friends, which explains roughly half his filmography choices.
From Breakthrough to Blockbuster Success
Damon credits Good Will Hunting for launching his career, but The Bourne Identity proved equally crucial. Doug Liman's spy thriller rescued him from potential obscurity and prevented him from becoming a forgotten flash in the pan, establishing his trajectory for the following two decades.
His career pattern became predictable: collaborate with respected directors for artistic satisfaction, make uncredited cameos, star in mid-to-large budget genre films, appear in ensemble pieces. Rinse and repeat. The formula worked, keeping him relevant, but he's worried those opportunities are disappearing.
The $300 Million Problem
Back in 2016, Damon shared his grim outlook with The Tech. "I think nowadays I'm so depressed about things because movies have changed since I was where you are," he explained. "Because of these bigger influences on the business, now they're making these giant, giant movies that are these $300 million behemoths."
He specifically targeted films "all about people in capes running around." This was before his appearances in Deadpool 2 and Taika Waititi's Thor movies, which became three of his highest-grossing films until Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer surpassed them.
The Death of Mid-Budget Cinema
"I'd say what irks me the most right now is that the movies that were my bread and butter, the Good Will Hunting-type movies, or The Informant, or movies like that, have just evaporated," Damon continued. "They're just gone. They're not being made anymore. They're either being made for television, or they have to be made for extremely low budgets."
The Academy Award winner proved prophetic again, identifying "the one thing that bothers me" about contemporary cinema: "that the scripts have become so simple, and the stories have become so simple and predictable, and we're not getting tired of them yet."
By 2026, Damon co-starred in and co-produced The Rip with Ben Affleck through their Artists Equity banner. The film was created with Netflix's specific instruction to repeat plot points multiple times through dialogue, acknowledging that subscribers would be distracted by their phones rather than paying full attention. Unable to fight the system, he joined it instead.