Matt Damon opened up about his missed opportunity of earning a whopping $250 million by rejecting a role in the super-hit movie Avatar, admitting it was the “dumbest decision” he ever made.
The actor was offered the lead role in the epic science fiction film by the director James Cameron, who proposed to give Damon 10% share in the film’s box office earnings. However, Damon turned down the offer, regretting the decision later.
Damon confessed in a joint interview with Zoe Saldana, who played the lead protagonist in the film, “It’s the dumbest thing an actor ever did in the history of acting.”
Saldana disagreed, assuring Damon that his career did not suffer because of it. She added, “Do you know what kind of movie that would’ve been if I would have been in it?”
Damon joked about the lost opportunity, saying, “I’ve probably done, like, 50 movies. I’ve never been in a movie that made $1 billion. It’s not ‘Good Will Hunting 2’.” He praised Saldana for her roles in many films that have earned over $2 billion.
The actor previously made headlines at the Cannes Film Festival 2021, where he revealed that he had turned down the role of Jake Sully in the movie, which later went to Sam Worthington. He called the rejection the “biggest missed opportunity in the history of [his] career.”
Saldana quipped, “I’m not Matt Damon. I don’t get to turn down Avatars.”
James Cameron addressed Damon’s decision in an interview with BBC Radio and said, “He’s beating himself up over this.” Cameron added, “Matt, you’re kind of like one of the biggest movie stars in the world, get over it.”
But Cameron understood that Damon had to do another ‘Bourne’ film, which was on his runway, and there was nothing they could do about it. So, he “regretfully declined.”
