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Matthew McConaughey’s career has been a rollercoaster, starting with his breakthrough performances in Dazed and Confused and Time to Kill, followed by a rom-com that received negative reviews throughout most of the 2000s. Then, in the 2010s, he made a dramatic about-face that was so successful that it gave rise to the name McConnaissance.
Matthew McConaughey made a conscious decision to reroute his career, and the jobs he turned down were just as significant as the ones he accepted. According to THR, in 2008, when his career was in a slump, he bravely and surprisingly decided to pass up a $15 million payment for the film adaptation of the 1980s TV series Magnum PI.
Before agreeing to play the lead in Dallas Buyers Club (2013), for which he was reputedly paid less than $200k and for which he won the Oscar, McConaughey instead picked a number of smaller roles, including those in The Lincoln Lawyer, Killer Joe, The Paperboy, Mud, and one of his greatest films, Magic Mike. Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, and the critically acclaimed TV series True Detective came after this.
The Texas actor’s career peaked between 2011 and 2014, which he attained by declining lucrative offers. Given that Miami Vice, directed by Michael Mann, was released in 2006 and hardly made any money, it’s intriguing that a Magnum PI movie was being discussed in 2008. Younger reviewers have recently responded favourably to it after first receiving negative reviews.
Given that he has been chosen to replace Kevin Costner as the leading man of the Western empire, Matthew McConaughey’s upcoming project may be a television series set in Taylor Sheridan’s constantly growing Yellowstone world.