Matt Damon Didn’t Actually Turn Down $290 Million Payday for ‘Avatar’

It’s very difficult to feel bad for Matt Damon. He’s one of the most successful and beloved Hollywood figures of the past 30 years, he has a stable marriage, his movies have won Academy Awards and grossed countless millions, he’s dealt with none of the tabloid issues that have dogged his good buddy Ben Affleck, and he’s at the center of mega-franchises like Bourne and the Oceans movies.

But he has one nagging regret that he’s brought up numerous times over the interviews: Turning down a lead role in the original Avatar, and the 10% of the $2.9 billion gross he says would have come his way. 

“I’m sure it’s the most money an actor ever turned down, you know?” Damon told Chris Wallace in 2023. “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. I don’t know how I could have left all my friends in the lurch. You know what I mean?”

It’s a “what if?” that has nagged Damon for 16 years. But in a new interview with the Hollywood Reporter, James Cameron says that Damon doesn’t quite have the facts right. 

“He was never offered the part,” Cameron said. “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.”

Crucially, Cameron also feels that Damon is way off on the roughly $290 million the actor believes he would have gotten for the movie. “Now what he’s done is he’s extrapolated, ‘I get 10 percent of the gross on all my films,’” Cameron said. “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.”

Let’s hope this clears up Matt Damon’s mind and he can sleep better tonight, knowing that $290 million was never really an option in the first place. And with a lead role in Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey coming up, and the strong possibility of the long-awaited Oceans 14, we don’t think he’s going to be cutting coupons any time soon. (And maybe he’ll make enough that he’ll turn down crypto scammers when they approach him about making another commercial.)