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Matt Damon had over 90 film credits to his name that includes starring in different film franchises over the years.
Although the actor who’s good friends with Chris Hemsworth has had a lengthy list of filmography, it does not mean that he just signs on every film that was offered to him. In fact, there was one huge film project that he was offered on, but he ended up turning down it down.
Matt Damon reflected on passing up on the film offer of James Cameron more than a decade ago. The actor has admitted that he rejected James Cameron’s offer that would have been the biggest payday of his career.
Matt Damon Lost $250 Million When He Rejected Avatar
Matt Damon revealed that he turned down James Cameron’s offer to star in Avatar. The filmmaker offered him 10% of the film’s profits in exchange for portraying the lead role in the sci-fi film. Damon would soon regret his decision since the film went on to become the highest-grossing film of all time with almost $3 billion.
The actor would have gotten an estimated amount of $250 million for doing the said film. Damon can only humor himself at this point as an actor who turned down more money. He tells Deadline “I was offered a little movie called Avatar, James Cameron offered me 10% of it.” He added “I will go down in history… you will never meet an actor who turned down more money.”
The 52-year-old actor recalled the first time he shared the story to a fellow actor. He first shared it with The Office actor John Krasinski and Damon recounted that Krasinski even rose from the table in disbelief. He then said to Damon “Nothing would be different in your life if you had done Avatar, except you and me would be having this conversation in space.”
Matt Damon Had No Choice But To Let Go Of The Project
Matt Damon rejected James Cameron’s offer because at the time, he already signed up for The Bourne Ultimatum. His hands were forced and despite wanting to accept Cameron’s offer, he just couldn’t. His hands were tied since ethically speaking; he couldn’t screw over the people working for The Bourne franchise.
When the news came out that Damon was offered the lead role in Avatar, the story blew up. During his interview with The Talks writer Rüdiger Sturm, he said “I know, I know… The cat is out of the bag on that story. I like telling it because it’s the proof that I am the dumbest businessman in the world! But really, at the time, I had no choice.”
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The actor couldn’t just be greedy. At the end of the day, Damon finds comfort that he made the morally correct decision. He could sleep at night knowing that he did not screw over hundreds of workers.
“I would have had to screw over the people working on The Bourne Ultimatum and I couldn’t do that ethically.” He further added “So it’s not like I wasn’t doing anything and I just passed on Avatar. That never would have happened.”
Despite losing out on millions, Damon believes that the biggest regret on that decision was that he missed out on working with the renowned Canadian filmmaker. He has always wanted to work with Cameron and even without the millions he would have done the film. Since the director rarely made films, he felt like he missed out big time.
“For me, the biggest tragedy of that story was that I was missing out on a chance to work with James Cameron,” he said.
“He was on top of the list of directors that I wanted to work with! When I was talking to him, he said that he had only made six movies. And I remember being shocked by that. I knew all of his films back to front and it felt like he had done much more. He works very infrequently. Now another ten years will have gone by before he is doing another one.”
Matt Damon Had A Different Metrics For A Film’s Success
There’s no doubt that Avatar was indeed a huge success basing on the box office. However, the actor who came close to being canceled because the actor believes that the success of the film is not based on the earnings but rather on how the film was made.
He said “It’s the work….It’s the process itself. I have done enough movies now — movies that have failed, movies that have been successful. All we have as the people making it is the love of the doing of it. “
He went on to add “I am aware of the results because I have to be; it has an impact on my career, so I can’t be ignorant of the movies that I am doing. But it’s really about feeling that I did my best work, the best work I could do under the circumstances, feeling that we told the story we wanted to tell in the way we wanted to tell it. That’s really the definition of success.”
