Avatar Almost Starred Matt Damon

A scheduling conflict caused Matt Damon to turn down the lead role in the first Avatar film, and lose potentially the biggest acting payday in history.

Before it was given to Sam Worthington, the character of Jake Sully was first offered to Damon, but he was unable to sign up due to commitments while making The Bourne Ultimatum. Speaking to CNN’s Chris Wallace recently, Damon said:

"I'm sure it's the most money an actor has ever turned down, you know. 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 works so rarely."

If he got the part, Damon would've received 10% of the box office backend for the film. Given Avatar is the most lucrative movie of all time, with a $2,923,706,026 lifetime gross, Damon would’ve earned somewhere around $250 million, the most any actor has even earned in a role.

This comfortably beats the current highest on the list, Keanu Reeves, who has reportedly earned $156 million in total from The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions.

A role in Avatar would have set Damon up for a reprisal in successful 2022 sequel Avatar: The Way of Water, which is the third highest-earning film of all time. Oh well, at least he’s having a record-setting weekend at the box office for Barbenheimer.