Matt Damon has forged a prolific career in Hollywood, and is undoubtedly one of the most successful actors of all time!
But it appears that one missed opportunity is still eating away at him...
While Damon may have an estimated career net worth of an estimated $170 million and has been ranked as one of the highest-grossing actors of all time, the star could have been worth even more if he had taken a role in a very well-known sci-fi movie.
The 53-year-old actor has a stellar movie reel, including titles like Good Will Hunting, The Martian, and, of course, his role as Jason Bourne in all but one of the Bourne franchise movies.
However, per Deadline, the star has revealed during a masterclass at the Cannes Film Festival that when approached by director James Cameron to star in “a little movie called Avatar,” he rejected the offer - despite Cameron proposing 10% of the film’s profits to him.
"I will go down in history... you will never meet an actor who turned down more money," Damon recalled.
Looking back now, the actor must be kicking himself, as the 2009 Avatar movie went on to become the first ever movie to gross over $2.9 billion at the global box office, as per Collider. In fact, it's the highest-grossing movie of all time.
With the movie's budget and promotion costs totaling a reported $387 million, that means the total profits work out at around $2.5 billion. This means that Damon left A LOT of money on the table (around $250,000,000).
The reason for Damon’s rejection of the offer comes from a place of good morale. The actor was still working on the Jason Bourne franchise and did not want to abandon the movies, which had helped him become a global household name.
In an interview with GQ magazine, the actor said: “It would have caused a problem for Paul Greengrass and for all my friends on The Bourne Ultimatum, so I couldn’t do it.”
Instead, the lead role went to Sam Worthington, who returned to the role in Avatar: The Way of Water. The sequel was released in December 2022 and went on to gross $2.3 billion at the box office.
When an audience member pointed out to Damon that Cameron was working on multiple sequels to the movie, the actor joked: “There are sequels? Oh my god.”
In all seriousness though, Damon’s biggest regret about not taking the part isn’t actually anything to do with the money, as the actor admitted to GQ: “My kids are all eating. I’m doing OK.”
What the Jason Bourne star was actually more disappointed about was turning down the chance to work with director James Cameron.
“Cameron said to me in the course of that conversation, ‘Well you know, I’ve only made six movies.’ I didn't realize that. He works so infrequently, but his movies, you know all of them.” Damon continued.
“I realized in having to say no that I was probably passing on the chance to ever work with him.”
Some X users, who found out how much Damon turned down, praised the honorable actor for doing the right thing.
One user commented: “Chose his word over greed. Anyway, I'm sure he has enough money to live comfortably.”
Responding the Damon's comments, Cameron - in an interview with the BBC - would say: "[Damon's] 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."
In 2023, Damon would star in Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, which went on to become his highest-grossing feature film, raking in $977 million at the box office.
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