Matt Damon has a major career regret of not being cast in Avatar’s lead role, but director, James Cameron believed the actor should get over it. The high-budget sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, which took many years to complete, was released in 2022 and has already made a sizable sum of money. There will be more sequels, with the release of Avatar 3 set for 19 December 2025.
It is estimated that simply rejecting Avatar (2022), which featured Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña in the lead, cost Damon upwards of $250 million.
Moreover, even Damon admitted in 2019 that he had to turn down a role offer of the lead role in a James Cameron film.
Since the Good Will Hunting actor is one of the most well-known actors of all time, the Avatar franchise’s director stated in 2022 that he needed to “get over it.”
James Cameron Asked Matt Damon To ‘Get Over’ Turning Down Avatar
James Cameron, whose visionary work on the film enthralled millions of viewers, advised Matt Damon to “get over it” and take advantage of the opportunities that have come his way.
We are talking about Damon saying he regretted passing on the Avatar role because he had other commitments at the time and thus, he lost out financially. Even though Cameron offered him 10% of the movie’s box office take, the 52-year-old actor declined a part in the movie.
Avatar: The Way of Water eventually made over $2 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film of 2022. According to this, Damon would have made at least $250 million or more.
When the actor discussed rejecting Avatar in 2019, he said,
“I will go down in history. You will never meet an actor who turned down more money.”
However, the Avatar series director chuckled when asked how about the money the actor claimed he missed out on. In a 2022 interview with BBC Radio, the 68-year-old director said:
“He’s [Matt Damon] beating himself up over this. 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.”
At the time, Damon had declined Avatar: The Way of Water because he was working with director, Paul Greengrass to complete the action trilogy for Bourne.
Could Matt Damon Make a Cameo in a Future Avatar Film?
James Cameron, renowned for his unique blending of storytelling and cutting-edge technology, expressed his belief that everything happens for a reason. He emphasized that given how Matt Damon’s career had flourished and provided him with so many other successful endeavors, he should not be dwelling on lost opportunities.
When Cameron was asked if Damon could make a brief cameo appearance in a future Avatar film, the Canadian director seemed interested.
“Must do it. We have to do it so the world is in equilibrium again. But he doesn’t get 10%, f— that.”
Although Damon was “desperate” to work with Cameron on the Avatar franchise, he ultimately had to decline due to prior work commitments and completing the Bourne franchise.
At the time, he claimed that his real regret over passing on Avatar was that he might not have had another opportunity to collaborate with The Terminator director. Sam Worthington ended up landing the part.
Matt Damon said the following to CNN:
“I’m sure it’s the most money an actor ever turned down, you know? I had a contract … I was in the middle of shooting the ‘Bourne’ movie, and I knew that we were going to need work at the end, and I had to get it all the way to the finish line, and I would have to leave the movie kind of early and leave them in the lurch a little bit, and I didn’t want to do that. I desperately wanted to work with Cameron. I mean, because he worked so rarely.”
James Cameron produced and directed the 2022 science fiction movie, and it received favorable reviews from critics. It became the highest-grossing movie of that year after breaking multiple box office records and earning over $2.320 billion globally.
You can watch Avatar (2009) and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), which is available to stream on Disney Plus.
Source- BBC Radio
