Matt Damon rejected the chance to direct the 2010 crime drama *The Town*, a project later taken on by his longtime friend Ben Affleck. Affleck’s decision proved significant because the film became both a critical and commercial success, helping establish him as a major director after his earlier filmmaking debut, *Gone Baby Gone*.

Damon said he dismissed the prospect immediately, believing it required more experience than he had at the time, and he had never directed a film. Affleck rewrote and directed the adaptation of Chuck Hogan’s novel *Prince of Thieves*, also starring as a Boston bank robber alongside Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Hall and Jon Hamm; it earned about $154 million worldwide from a $37 million budget and received an Oscar nomination for Renner.