Celebrity net worth websites are unreliable. For instance, Matt Damon having a net worth of only (“only”) $170 million sounds low. Or maybe I only think that after learning the Oppenheimer actor lost out on an extra $250 million by not starring in Avatar.
Back in 2019, Damon revealed, “Jim Cameron offered me Avatar. And when he offered it to me, he goes, ‘Now, listen. I don’t need anybody. I don’t need a name for this, a named actor. If you don’t take this, I’m going to find an unknown actor and give it to him, because the movie doesn’t really need you. But if you take the part, I’ll give you ten percent of [it].’” Ten percent of Avatar‘s highest-grossing-movie-of-all-time box office total is roughly a quarter of a billion dollars. Damon’s doing fine, but still. Oops.
Cameron was asked about Damon’s comments (he was presumably up for Jake Sully) in a BBC Radio 1 interview while promoting Avatar: The Way of Water. He had a candid Mr. Haters Need to “Shut the F*ck Up”-like response. “He’s beating himself up over this, and I really think, ‘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’s nothing he could do about that, and so he had to regretfully decline,” the director said.
The role went to Sam Worthington. His net worth? A measly $30 million.
(Via Insider)