Gary Ross, the director of Ocean’s 8, explains why Matt Damon was cut from the film.
The heist movie was packed with plenty of celebrity cameos, but not everyone made the cut.
Damon was set to reprise as Linus Caldwell in the all-female reboot to the Ocean’s Eleven franchise.
The Bourne Identity star received backlash over comments he made about Harvey Weinstein and the #MeToo movement, a petition called for his cameo to be cut from the caper.
“I do believe that there is a spectrum of behaviour … there’s a difference between patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation,” Damon told the US ABC News.
“Both of those behaviours need to be confronted and eradicated, without question, but they shouldn’t be conflated.”
The petition received over 28,000 signatures.
However, that’s not the reason behind Damon’s disappearance.
“[Picking the cameos] is an eclectic process of: How does it fit in the story and how is the narrative unfolding?” Ross told The Hollywood Reporter.
“This more than any movie I’ve done had a really copious editorial process where you play with stuff, you find stuff. I’ve never shot anything after I’ve wrapped on any other movie before, but in a heist movie and an ensemble movie, you’re still working on the play …”
The filmmaker said the backlash had nothing to do with Damon’s absence.
“There were a lot of people who were gracious to us that just for editorial and storytelling reasons didn’t make it in and some who did,”
“If you know, we ended up shooting probably another 10 days afterwards, so there’s a lot of material and a lot of shaping. But it really just comes to storytelling.”
Carl Reiner was also set to appear in the movie as Saul Bloom, but his scenes were cut.
Ocean’s 8 is in cinemas now.
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