Matt Damon is known for constantly playing characters in need of rescue. It’s really quite astonishing when you think about the excessive effort and time it takes to save this dude from danger over and over. But we’re less interested in energy, and more interested in funds. Specifically, how much money did it take to save Matt Damon?
To be clear, what we’re looking for here is the real-life dollar costs of executing the near-suicide missions undertaken to save Matt Damon if the scenarios he gets stuck in the movies were real. We’re not just talking about film budgets here, people. Let’s not be silly.
Thankfully, somebody has already thought of answering this question, and his name is Kynan Eng. When it popped up on the popular question-and-answer site Quora, he was quick to do the semi-accurate math (more on that later) to give us the answer we need.
In Courage Under Fire, Matt Damon plays a guy who need to be rescued via helicopter during the first Gulf War.
Estimated Cost of Rescue: $300k
In Saving Private Ryan, Matt Damon plays a private who needs to be rescued by a World War 2 European search party.
Estimated Cost of Rescue: $100k
In Titan AE, Matt Damon voices a guy who needed to be evacuated from Earth via spaceship.
Estimated Cost of Rescue: $200B
In Syriana, Matt Damon plays an analyst who needed a return flight from the Middle East to Switzerland.
Estimated Cost of Rescue: $50k
In Green Zone, Matt Damon plays a soldier who needed to be rescued via the US Army transport from Middle East
Estimated Cost of Rescue: $50k
In Elysium, Matt Damon plays a factory worker who gets trapped in his workplace
Estimated Cost of Rescue: $100m
In Interstellar, Matt Damon plays a scientist who gets trapped in his workplace
Estimated Cost of Rescue: $500B
In The Martian, Matt Damon plays an astronaut who gets trapped outstation
Estimated Cost of Rescue: $200B
Total costs for saving Matt Damon: $900,100,500,000
Now, some of you may be asking, what makes this Kynan Eng guy so qualified in answering this question? We’ll let him tell you himself. Here he is, via a post he wrote on Medium about a week ago:
“I am part-time on the faculty of the Institute of Neuroinformatics of the University of Zurich and the ETH Zurich. Unfortunately, however, I was not paid or given time to answer this question, and it’s definitely not endorsed by any of my employers (they probably don’t even know as of this writing). And no I haven’t worked at NASA, ESA or any military organisation. One of the startups I’m involved with has done work for the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on neuromorphic sensors and autonomous drones, but that’s as close as it gets.”
“If I do have any relevant qualifications, they are as follows: I have degrees in mechanical engineering and computer science, and once designed parts for gas turbines. So I have guessed engineering things for a living. More recently I have been involved in a number of technology startups, so I also guess the cost of things that don’t exist yet. I’m not rich, so obviously I need more practice at guessing.”
Also, remember how we said these number are only semi-accurate? When asked how he discovered these figures, he had this to say:
“I just made them up,” he confessed to BuzzFeed News. “This is not real research in the sense that I know it. It would be nice to get this type of coverage for my real work.”
Ah well. We’re as close as we can get to the real cost of saving Matt Damon though, so that’s gotta be worth something. Or is it?
Almost certainly not. Truth is, we think Matt Damon is likely to get himself in some other shenanigan some other time in the future that is more than likely going to require some saving (unless it’s another Bournesequel). And when he does, we’ll be right in the cinemas waiting for somebody to get him the heck outta there.
Speaking of movies, check out this comparison we made of all the video-on-demand services you can get in Malaysia so you can watch Matt Damon being rescued anytime on any device you want. Also check out this mega list we compiled of all movie ticket prices for every cinema in the Klang Valley so you can plan out your next movie outing.
Before we let you off for the week, here’s a bonus video featuring Matt Damon not exactly being rescued.
Do you think Matt Damon is worth saving?
No comments:
Post a Comment