Every actor has a thing that they’re known for in movies – Leonardo DiCaprio‘s characters tend to die all the goddamn time, while Matt Damon is constantly finding himself in sticky situations in need of rescue.
From behind enemy lines in occupied France to Gulf oil states to outer space – especially outer space – Damon’s characters always needs to be brought home from somewhere or other.
Because it’s the time of year to ponder such things, a Quora user, Kynan Eng, posed the question of how much money has been spent bringing Damon back from distant places over the years.
Eng broke it down into both movie budgets and the fictional cost of Damon retrieval, and it turns out that it’s a shitload either way.
The fictional cost of rescuing Damon, as estimated (we repeat, ~estimated~, because none of this is real) in 2015 currency comes to around $900 billion. Here’s how that breaks down, film-by-film:
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
The actual movie budget cost of bringing Matt Damon home from places is a comparatively reasonable $729 million:
Movie Budgets
Saving Private Ryan: $70m
Titan A.E.: $75m
Syriana: $50m
Green Zone: $100m
Elysium: $115m
Interstellar: $165m
The Martian: $108m
TOTAL: $729m
We figured we’d take it a step further and figure out how much money people have paid to see Matt Damon getting rescued. Via Box Office Mojo, we looked at the worldwide gross of the above films:
Worldwide GrossSaving Private Ryan: $482mTitan A.E.: $37mSyriana: $94mGreen Zone: $95mElysium: $286mInterstellar: $675mThe Martian: $594mTOTAL: $2.263b
Going by the above figures, it seems like cinema-goers have spent approximately $2.263 billion to see Matt Damon getting rescued from various scrapes.
Because it’s the holidays and we can, we also hit up Box Office Mojo to figure out how much money people have paid to watch Leonardo DiCaprio die over the years. The numbers, as you can see, are pretty huge.
Worldwide gross:The Quick And The Dead: $18mTotal Eclipse: $340kRomeo & Juliet: $147mTitanic: $2.2bBlood Diamond: $171mThe Departed: $290mJ. Edgar: $84mDjango Unchained: $425mThe Great Gatsby: $351mTOTAL: $3.68b
It turns out people have spent approximately $3.68 billion to watch Leonardo DiCaprio die on screen, most of it on watching him freeze in the icy waters of the North Atlantic.
[Leo fans: note that we haven’t seen The Revenant, because it doesn’t open here til January, and so we haven’t included it on the list as we have no goddamn way of knowing if Leo’s character lives, dies or what.]
Sorry, Leo, but it looks like killing you is a way better investment than saving Matt.
Story: BGR