By About two years ago, a video surfaced in which actor Matt Damon claimed to have rejected the lead role of Jake Sully in the “Avatar” franchise – and lost a massive payday in the process.
Damon said in the clips that Cameron had called him and offered him “10% of Avatar”. Damon was in the middle of shooting a ‘Bourne’ film and didn’t want to “leave them in the lurch a little bit”.
He adds Cameron explained: “If you don’t do this, this movie doesn’t really need you. It doesn’t need a movie star at all. The movie is the star, the idea is the star, and it’s going to work. But if you do it, I’ll give you 10% of the movie.”
Damon indicated he rejected it and the role ultimately went to Australian actor Sam Worthington, while the film itself grossed $2.9 billion. This has led to talk that Damon lost out on hundreds of millions of dollars.
That’s not the case, says Cameron, who offered a different recollection. He tells THR:
“He was never offered the part. I can’t remember if I sent him the script or not. I don’t think I did. Then we wound up on a call, and he said, ‘I love to explore doing a movie with you. I have a lot of respect for you as a filmmaker. [Avatar] sounds intriguing. But I really have to do this Jason Bourne movie. I’ve agreed to it, it’s a direct conflict, and so, regretfully, I have to turn it down.’ But he was never offered. There was never a deal. We never talked about the character. We never got to that level. It was simply an availability issue.
Now, what he’s done is he’s extrapolated ‘I get 10% of the gross on all my films.’ And if, in his mind, that’s what it would’ve taken for him to do Avatar, then it wouldn’t have happened. Trust me on that. So he’s off the hook and doesn’t have to beat himself up anymore. Matt, it’s okay, buddy! You didn’t miss anything.”
Don’t take this as a diss against Damon, quite the opposite. Cameron says he has respect for the actor and the fact Damon reached out personally to say he had to turn it down was a classy move:
“He felt compelled to call me personally and tell me; he said he didn’t want it to come from the agent – that’s an honorable guy. So all respect to Matt. I’d love to work with him someday. But that never happened. It was a conflation of different things that were happening.”
Worthington is reportedly drawing his best notices yet in the Jake Sully role for his work in “Avatar: Fire and Ash” which is now in cinemas.
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