Nespresso
Wait, what? How much money did Matt Damon make? According to Page Six, Damon earned $3 million dollars for appearing in a Nespresso commercial for 20-seconds with George Clooney. Well, okay then.
Given that both Damon and Clooney will soon appear in 2014’s Monuments Men, it looks like Nespresso wanted to jump on all of the hype that is surrounding the film (and the experienced pair). The espresso company turned the commercial into a family affair and even got Grant Heslov, who produced Monuments Men, to direct the ad. (Spoiler: According to this commercial, Damon can totally slow down time.)
Now, we all know that big movie stars, especially those like Damon and Clooney, rake in an insane amount of cash for starring in feature films, but $3 million for 20 seconds of screentime (that’s $150,000 per second) is a whole other ballgame. (We don’t even want to think about how much Clooney made considering he has been working with Nespresso for a handful of years.)
However, while the pricetag is enough to boggle anyone’s mind, the true head-scratcher has to be the alternate ending commercial in which Damon speaks a total of two words and does an exasperated “Oh brother!” chuckle because, honestly, it doesn’t make that much sense. As a stand-alone commercial, it’s pretty awkward and confusing. Damon seems completely uncomfortable (but maybe that’s just because he only says the words “recycling” and “yeah”), and the joke makes approximately zero sense. (Seriously though, if you have any idea of what the “funny” joke is, let us know, because we just don’t get it.)
But you know what? In the end, Damon shouldn’t be chastised for agreeing to the deal of a lifetime (even though we all know he inevitably will be) — it’s Nespresso that looks like the insane party in this situation for paying Damon that much money. All we can say is that we hope those espressos are worth it.
