Matt Damon turned down the lead role in Avatar…and a whole lot of money
By Ariba Bhuvad
Matt Damon was once offered the lead role in James Cameron’s Avatar. Moreover, he was offered 10% of the movie’s profits if he was to take on the role of Jake Sully, who was eventually played by Sam Worthington.
Avatar made a whopping $2.79 billion at the box office, meaning Damon stood to make around $250 million if he accepted the role. He had to turn it down mainly due to scheduling conflicts with The Bourne Ultimatum and The Green Zone.
While speaking with British GQ, Damon revealed that, from the get-go, Cameron told him that if Damon didn’t take the role it would likely go to an unknown actor, because the movie didn’t necessarily need someone like him, someone with a pedigree. And indeed it didn’t; until not that long ago, Avatar was the most profitable film ever, only recently eclipsed by Avengers: Endgame. I don’t know what Worthington was offered for the role, but we can bet it wasn’t that much.
Damon recalls how to once shared this story with John Krasinki, of all people, when the two were writing the fracking drama Promised Land together.
"We’re writing in the kitchen and we’re on a break and I tell him the story and he goes: ‘What?’And he stands up and he starts pacing in the kitchen. He goes: ‘OK. OK. OK. OK. OK.’He goes: ‘If you had done that movie, nothing in your life would be different. Nothing in your life would be different at all. Except that, right now, we would be having this conversation in space.’"
Damon was talking to GQ alongside Christian Bale, the both of them promoting their new movie Le Man’s ’66. Apparently, Bale lost “all control of his facial muscles” while Damon was telling his Avatar story, because how could you not?
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And remember: Cameron is currently readying a bunch of Avatar sequels. If the original deal held, Damon could have stood to make over a billion dollars from just one role. And yes, of course Damon is doing just fine without that, but you figure it has to keep him up at night just a little, imagining the private network of island paradises he didn’t get to buy.
Next. Brush up on the Joker’s long history with this video. dark
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