Matt Damon has been confirmed as being involved in a Lance Armstrong documentary due for release next year, with the American actor set to narrate the Alex Gibney-made film. The project, which is mainly based around Armstrong’s 2009 comeback to the Tour de France, will presumably be launched before the 2011 Tour in order to capitalise on media attention.
Speaking to the LA Times, Gibney said that Damon was picked as he had been linked to a separate film about Armstrong’s life. That has been in the making for six years, but the ongoing federal investigation into the seven-time Tour winner has made its future less certain.
Damon, the star of such films as the Bourne series and winner of an Academy Award for best screenplay, narrates in the financial-crisis documentary "Inside Job." The 40 year old confirmed in 2004 that he would play Armstrong in the planned film, which was due to be directed by Frank Marshall and slated to be released in 2006. However filming was never started.
Instead, Oscar winner Gibney got involved in the documentary, which was intended to pave the way for the other work. He accepts that the Armstrong story is still evolving due to the Floyd Landis allegations, but said that a completion date will have to be set for the documentary.
“At some point, the only thing you can do is make up your mind on when the story ends,” he told the paper. “If you try to put in too much, the film will just go on forever.”
Gibney accepts that Armstrong is a polarizing figure, and knows that the reception to the documentary is likely to be varied. “There is, at least from the public perspective, a big disparity of opinion on him,” he said. “Some people hold him up to be a saint. Particularly if you're a cancer survivor or cancer patient, he provides enormous hope. Other people see in him a kind of hypocrisy, and hypocrisy drives people crazy, particularly if they make money off it.”
He won an Oscar in 2007 for his film ‘Taxi to the Dark Side,’ which was set in Afghanistan.