There is a famous story about actor Matt Damon turning down a role in director James Cameron’s 2009 movie Avatar, a film that remained the highest-grossing film of all time for roughly 10 years. Damon turned down the $250 million deal because of a valid reason but looking back at it, Damon doesn’t regret it because of the money, he regrets it because he missed the opportunity to work with James Cameron.
Damon has worked with various directors in the industry but it has been his lifelong dream to collaborate with Cameron. Unfortunately, Damon’s commitment to the 2007 movie The Bourne Ultimatum stopped him from working with the legendary director.
Matt Damon wanted to work with James Cameron
In the late 2000s, director James Cameron offered an insane deal to actor Matt Damon asking him to play the role of Corporal Jake Sully in his 2009 movie Avatar, along with a 10% stake in the film’s profits. In 2019, Damon appeared for an interview with The Talks and explained that he has some regrets about turning the role down, but it wasn’t about the money,
“The biggest tragedy of that story was that I was missing out on a chance to work with James Cameron. 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…”
Avatar (2009) grossed roughly $2.9 billion at the global box office, making it the highest-grossing film of all time in 2009. The film was dethroned by Avengers: Endgame in 2019.
Why did Matt Damon turn down the deal?
Damon had a fair reason why he turned down this crazy deal. During the interview, he explained that he was working in The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) at the time,
“It’s the proof that I am the dumbest businessman in the world! But really, at the time, I had no choice. I would have had to screw over the people working on The Bourne Ultimatum and I couldn’t do that ethically. So it’s not like I wasn’t doing anything and I just passed on Avatar. That never would have happened.”
Well, Damon doesn’t have to worry as he will get plenty of chances to star in the Avatar franchise as Cameron will be directing three more Avatar movies, Avatar 3 (2025), Avatar 4 (2029), and Avatar 5 (2031).
Related: Matt Damon Reveals the True Nature of George Clooney When Cameras Are Not Around
