Matt Damon has just addressed the elephant thatās been walking around the room for years.
The 52-year-old star really did turn down a lead role for James Cameronās blockbuster Avatar.
And it turned out to be a rather expensive decision.
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James Cameron offered Damon the lead role in āAvatarā and 10 percent of the filmās box office but the actor turned it down.
Friendly reminder, Avatar grossed over $2.8 billion at the box office.
In other words, Damon wouldāve theoretically made close to $280 million, which wouldāve been Hollywoodās biggest payday by far.
For the record, the role eventually went to Sam Worthington, who played Corporal Jake Sully.
During a recent interview at Cannes Film Festival, Damon explained why he turned the offer.
āI turned down [Avatar], youāll never meet an actor that turned down more money than me,ā Damon said.
ā[James] Cameron called me and he told me the movie didnāt need a star [because] the movie was the star.ā
But he said James Cameron still wanted him to star in his film, and was ready to offer him 10 percent to do it.
Damon said he turned it down because he was still doing Jason Bourne, and he needed to be around for post-production.
In the end, he said it didnāt feel right to just ditch the Jason Bourne project to jump on the Avatar one.
Cameron told the BBC he knows the actor āis [still] beating himself up over thisā.
The Oscar-winning director jokingly said Damon should just āget over itā since heās ākind of like one of the biggest movie stars in the worldā.
Damon made around $25 million for each Jason Bourne movie, except for the first one, for which he was āonlyā paid $10 million.
While thatās nothing to sneeze at, we can only imagine what it must feel like to miss out on a $280m payday.