"Jason Bourne saved my life," Matt Damon was recently quoted as saying. "The weekend 'The Bourne Identity' opened in 2001 I was doing a play in London's West End and I hadn't had a film offer in six months because I'd had a couple of movies tank."
The star insists that his whole career would have been over had it not been for the arrival of the Bourne character.
He was referring to his films 'All The Pretty Horses' and 'The Legend of Bagger Vance' which had bombed badly.
Damon says that, initially, there was word in the industry that the first Bourne flick could also flop, but it's success won him another 20 to 30 film offers.
"The word was that the first Bourne movie was also going badly, because it had been delayed so long and had so many rounds of re-shooting. It had all the hallmarks of a turkey," he says.
"So I went from my final night of doing This Is Our Youth on the Friday, to the Sunday when I had 20 to 30 movie offers, just based on the opening weekend of The Bourne Identity," he says
The next installment of the series, The Bourne Ultimatum, opens August 3.
