When it comes to acting choices, the history of Hollywood is littered with performers who either regret not taking a role, or indeed taking a role.
In Matt Damon's case, it is the former, as he once did himself out of $100 million by not taking a particular role.
For the 2009 epic, Avatar, several actors were considered for the role of Jake Sully, including Damon, Chris Pratt, Chris Pine, Chris Evans, Channing Tatum, and Jake Gyllenhaal. Ultimately, Sam Worthington earned the role but only after Damon had to turn it down. Cameron offered Sully to Damon, who couldn't commit to filming due to his part in the Bourne franchise.
"I was offered a little movie called Avatar, James Cameron offered me 10% of it," Deadline previously reported from the Cannes Film Festival.
"I will go down in history. You will never meet an actor who turned down more money."
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Damon described just how stupid a decision that turned out to be.
"It’s the dumbest thing an actor ever did in the history of acting.
"I've probably done, like, 50 movies. I've never been in a movie that made $1 billion."
Cameron tells Damon to 'get over' Avatar
Avatar director Cameron has now told Damon, tongue-in-cheek, to get over the loss in earnings, but did offer him the chance to appear in a future instalment of the Avatar franchise.
"He’s beating himself up over this," the director told Radio 1.
"And I really think you know, 'Matt, you’re kind of like one of the biggest movie stars in the world, get over it.' But he had to do another Bourne film which was on his runway and there was nothing we could do about that. So he had to regretfully decline.
"We must do it," he said of a future collaboration.
"We have to do it so the world is in equilibrium again. But he doesn’t get 10%."
Related Movie
Avatar
Fantasy / Adventure
2009 • 162 minutes
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