Matt Damon, the famous leading actor of the Bourne saga and many other
blockbusters, has reminded a journalist at Cannes of the time he turned
down the lead role in Avatar. "I will go down in history as the actor who
turned down the most money for a role."
With Avatar 1 being the
highest-grossing movie in movie history, and two sequels in the works,
renowned actor Matt Damon told Deadline reporters that he turned down the
lead role in this film at the time.
According to the figures known to date, Avatar's estimated
net earnings are within 1.2 billion dollars – not counting when it was
re-released again in Asia at the beginning of the year, where it has a
fairly important fanbase¨.
The actor, to whom Cameron promised
10% of the film's net profits, would have had an estimated profit of at
least $120 million.
"I will go down in history (as the actor
who turned down Avatar) you will never find an actor who has turned down
such a lot of money again," Damon declared, words more, words less at
Cannes.
On the eve of the Cannes premiere of his new feature film
Stillwater, Damon recalled being approached by Cameron about offering him
the lead role in his new film Avatar.
¨He offered me a little
tape called Avatar. James Cameron offered me 10% of the profits for
playing the role¨ says the Oscar-winning actor with a successful career
behind him.
In the most recent estimates – which include the
Asian and global re-release earlier this year – the total gross is
believed to exceed $3 billion, which would have netted Damon $250
million.
The reason the renowned author turned down the offer at the
time was because he was engaged to star in Jason Bourne's trio of action
movies.
However, as John Krasinski let him know when they were
writing the script for Promised Land together, turning down that offer did
not affect Damon's film career at all. ¨The only thing that would have
changed is that, at this moment, we would have been having this
conversation in space¨.
Damon, for his part, does not regret losing the juicy Avatar
deal, but the fact that he never managed to work with Cameron, a director
who works very sporadically.
Sam Worthington: the stranger who ended up as the protagonist
Finally,
the role of Avatar went to the unknown Sam Worthington.
This
was a fortune for him, because he was sleeping in his car in 2007, until
Cameron called him to sign the leading role in Avatar that made him
visible for sagas like Terminator.
