Matt Damon reveals he refused lead role in Avatar and 10% of film's profits

Matt Damon has revealed that he "turned down the most money an actor has ever been offered" when he said no to Sam Worthington's role in James Cameron's 2009 blockbuster fantasy epic Avatar. While he didn't confirm the amount, the reported remuneration as per the CNN report is around $250 million.

In the interview, Matt Damon said while he was desperate to work with James Cameron, he had a prior commitment to finishing the Bourne franchise, the action thriller movies he played the titular character of Jason Bourne in.

"I did. I had, I had. 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 worked so rarely," Matt said in the interview.

In the same interview, Matt said he once discussed turning down Avatar with actor-director John Krasinski, and his reaction was hilarious. "It would have… my favorite reaction to this was, I told John Krasinski, we were writing this little movie a long time ago called Promised Land and we were in my kitchen and it was a Saturday morning and we were on a break and I said, Yeah, I tell him about Avatar, and he launches himself out of the chair. He starts pacing the kitchen, he goes, okay, okay, okay. Okay, okay. Nothing in your life would be different today if you had done that movie, except you and I would be having this conversation in space. I would have been the same guy, I just would have had a space station," Matt said.

Avatar became the highest grossing film of all time when it released in 2009 by making around $2.92 billion dollars. It even won three Oscars the next year. The film's sequel Avatar 2: The Way of Water released in cinemas last year.