Matt Damon has been in some incredibly popular movies and franchises during his career, but he may have a secret cinematic universe to his name as well. After breaking through as an actor (and writer) with Good Will Hunting, Damon became a franchise star through the Bourne movies. In the years since, he's focused his attention on working with specific directors on big-budget studio films and independent awards-fare. Through a combination of his filmography, there's now a theory that Damon has a cinematic universe.
The theory begins with 1997's Good Will Hunting where Damon plays the brilliant Will Hunting. As a janitor at M.I.T., Will's intellect is first discovered when he solves a difficult math equation. His smarts are recognized by one of M.I.T.'s professors, who manages to get help him avoid jail time so that he can study math and go to therapy. The professor wants to help Will land a big job, but the film ends without Will's future clearly decided. For the purposes of this theory, Will's brilliance and lack of family or personal relationships make him a perfect target for the government to recruit. And where does he wind up? Treadstone.
Treadstone is the top-secret CIA program at the center of the Bourne franchise. It is here that he becomes one of the best assassins on Earth and harnesses his natural gifts in combat. Meanwhile, he uses his smarts to quickly learn different languages and other skills. The theory would suggest that Will Hunting is the man who gained the Jason Bourne alias. Of course, as the Bourne franchise continued on, it was revealed that Bourne's real name is David Webb. But it is possible that this was a fake backstory given to Bourne - he did lose his memory after all - to conceal his actual past. Once his "past" is uncovered though, Bourne spends the next decade on the run. After helping save the world again though, he moves on spends the next several years learning about a variety of different subjects until he becomes interested in space travel.
This brings us to 2035 and the events of The Martian. Now a well-versed botanist - and using a new alias to move past his life as an assassin - Mark Watney is working for NASA. He goes on a mission to Mars that goes horribly when a massive storm forces Mark's team to leave him for dead on the planet. Mark uses his prior survival training to nurse himself back to health, secure shelter, and grow food. After managing to survive for over a year on Mars, Mark is eventually rescued and returns to Earth, where he takes up teaching to give his life some sense of normalcy. Little does he know that Earth is drastically changing thanks to the events of Interstellar.
In Interstellar, Earth slowly begins to die because of the Blight that is destroying crops. Worried that he may have brought a virus back to Earth from Mars, Mark Watney knows he has to do whatever he can to save humanity. Now going as Dr. Mann, he leads an expedition into a black hole to search 12 potentially habitable worlds. His findings are not promising and not wanting to die alone on another planet, he falsifies data in hopes that he'll be rescued and enters a hypersleep chamber. Once he is found by the Endurance crew in 2092, Dr. Mann eventually dies trying to force his way back to Earth.
All in all, this makes for a fun theory about Matt Damon's career and the extended backstory learned through it clarifies why Dr. Mann would be described as "the best of us" in Interstellar. If nothing else, the idea of Will Hunting/Jason Bourne/Mark Watney/Dr. Mann being the same person gives everyone a different lens to see these Matt Damon movies through.
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