Saving Mr. Damon

Matt Damon has been a pretty hot commodity in films — seems he's always the target of some rescue mission. Vulture figured out how much it has cost (in today's dollars) to bring him home: "Courage Under Fire," $300,000; "Saving Private Ryan," $100,000; "Titan AE," $200 billion; "Syriana," $50,000; "Green Zone," $50,000; "Elysium," $100 million; "Interstellar," $500 billion; "The Martian," $200 billion. Total: more than $900 billion, more than 5 percent of the U.S. gross national product.

Waiting for the week-end

Maggie Smith hasn't watched one second of "Downton Abbey," but now that the series is wrapped she plans to sit down with the boxed set: "I'm going to do all sorts of things now, 'cause I'm free!" … Netflix's "Making a Murderer" has sparked petitions to President Obama to pardon Steven Avery, the subject of the series.

Nolan goes to war

Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh and Mark Rylance are in talks to star in Christopher Nolan's war epic "Dunkirk." … Gerard Depardieu will play Joseph Stalin in an adaptation of "Le Divan de Staline (Stalin's Sofa)." … Blake Shelton will be the voice of a backcountry pig in the "Angry Birds" movie.

Sweet band o' mine

Guns N' Roses, with original members Slash and Axl Rose, will play together for the first time since 1993 at next year's Coachella festival, sources say.

Not ready for stardom

All the "Star Wars" hoopla perhaps has brought to mind Hayden Christensen, and the attendant question: Where did he go? The former Anakin Skywalker told the L.A. Times that the iconic role left him with a case of impostor syndrome, so he retreated to spend five years on a farm. "I felt like I had this great thing in 'Star Wars' that provided all these opportunities and gave me a career, but it all kind of felt a little too handed to me. I didn't want to go through life feeling like I was just riding a wave," Christensen said. His return to the business last year yielded the flop "90 Minutes in Heaven," but maybe his next role, as the titular "Marco Polo," will restore his confidence.

Cynthia Dickison