An Epic Christian Bale War Movie Almost Starred Matt Damon Instead

Werner Herzog's film "Rescue Dawn" (which hit U.S. theaters in the summer of 2007) was a semi-fictionalized retelling of his own 1997 documentary "Little Dieter Needs to Fly." The documentary followed Dieter Dengler, a German-American pilot whose plane was shot down during the Vietnam War, leading to his imprisonment and torture in a jungle-bound POW camp. Herzog took Dengler back to Laos and Thailand to relive his experiences there. "Rescue Dawn" extends the re-creation into a full scripted drama. Dengler was played by Christian Bale, giving an intense and marvelous performance. Meanwhile, Steve Zahn and Jeremy Davies co-star as American soldiers who've been captured alongside Dieter.

Herzog, always a stickler for authenticity, went back to Thailand to film in the locations where Dengler was lost and staged his escape. Notably, "Rescue Dawn" marked the first time Herzog ever used CGI in a movie, as he employed it to animate Dengler's initial plane crash. Bale, for his part, famously lost a huge amount of weight for his role, as Dengler is being starved in the jungle for much of the film's runtime. (The actor also nearly landed in a Taiwanese jail while working on the movie.) In a move that helped his cast, Herzog cleverly shot "Rescue Dawn" in reverse chronological order, allowing his actors to regain weight slowly over the course of the shoot. He also apparently joined Bale in eating maggots while the latter was getting into character, so as to prove it could be done.

In a vintage interview (one that has, sadly, now been swallowed by the internet), Herzog said that he cast Bale because he was the best of his generation. Bale is indeed excellent in the film, and he received a great deal of praise from critics, although he wasn't always a shoo-in to play Dengler. Indeed, it seems Herzog had once asked Matt Damon to play the role, clearly seeking a handsome movie star.

Speaking at a press conference to promote the film "The Adjustment Bureau" in 2011 (as attended by CinemaBlend), Damon revealed that he talked to Herzog about him starring in "Rescue Dawn" ... and foolishly turned it down. As he noted during the event, he's been offered parts in many major and minor projects over the years and has had to balance what he wants to do with how much a role pays or its difficulty. In the case of "Rescue Dawn," he passed on the film in favor of one that he felt would be a lot more fun to make. In his own words:

"[T]here was the Werner Herzog movie called 'Rescue Dawn' that Christian Bale did, and Werner and I were talking about that — this was eight years ago — about me possibly playing that role. I was really strongly considering it, and instead I met with the Farrelly Brothers. I remember talking to my mother, and my mother said, 'You don't always have to go into the jungle and lose a bunch of weight, you're allowed to have fun.' And I did the Farrelly Brothers movie, and that was where I met my wife. Four kids later, that was a pretty fateful decision." 

The Farrelly Brothers movie in question was "Stuck On You," a 2003 comedy about a pair of conjoined twins played by Damon and Greg Kinnear. "Stuck On You" filmed in Los Angeles and Miami and was far less physically grueling to make than "Rescue Dawn" (although Damon and Kinnear did have to be physically attached for their scenes). Damon was in Miami when he met Luciana Bozán Barroso, his future wife. The pair married in 2005 and had three kids together. The fourth is Damon's stepdaughter, whom he sees as his own. Filming in Miami and meeting your wife certainly seems like more fun than losing 50 pounds and shooting in a remote jungle, even if it is with Werner Herzog.

Notably, Damon was once offered a plum deal in 2006 that he similarly turned down. It seems that James Cameron had approached him about playing the role of Jake Sully in his then-upcoming effects-heavy extravaganza "Avatar." Damon would've not only gotten a hefty salary, but he also would've received a 10% stake in the film's profits. It seems, though, he was too busy with other projects and didn't want to back out. In particular, he was focused on making the Paul Greengrass movie "Green Zone. As Damon put it, somewhat sarcastically:

"Clearly for me, passing up the chance to be in 'Avatar' in order to do 'Green Zone' was one of those [fateful] moments. Because 'Avatar' didn't do very well ... The DVD of 'Green Zone' is just gonna go huge."

Naturally, Damon was having a little joke. "Green Zone" barely broke even, whereas "Avatar" went on to become the highest-grossing movie of all time. Several years later, in a 2023 interview with Chris Wallace, Damon also admitted he was committed to the Jason Bourne films at that time and didn't want to leave "The Bourne Ultimatum," which was in the middle of production.

Bale and Damon would eventually end up working together on James Mangold's 2019 dad film "Ford v Ferrari." The two actors played off each other well, although one can see that each one brings a very different type of energy to the screen. Ultimately, Bale was the better choice for "Rescue Dawn." And while "Stuck On You" is hardly remembered as a classic, Damon at least met his wife on set. Everything works out for a reason.