James Cameron is setting the record straight.
The filmmaker, 71, is refuting Matt Damon’s claims that the actor was offered a role in the “Avatar” franchise, which ultimately went to Sam Worthington.
“He was never offered the part,” Cameron told The Hollywood Reporter. “I can’t remember if I sent him the script or not. I don’t think I did? Then we wound up on a call and he said, ‘I love to explore doing a movie with you. I have a lot of respect for you as a filmmaker. [‘Avatar’] sounds intriguing.’”
The “Good Will Hunting” star, 55, has said on multiple occasions that he turned down an offer to take 10 percent of the gross profit from the 2009 sci-fi movie if he starred as Jake Sully.
But according to Cameron, Damon turned down the idea of playing Jake immediately.
“‘I really have to do this ‘Jason Bourne’ movie,’” he recalled the actor stating. “‘I’ve agreed to it, it’s a direct conflict, and so, regretfully, I have to turn it down.’”
“He was never offered,” continued Cameron. “There was never a deal. We never talked about the character. We never got to that level. It was simply an availability issue.”
The “Titanic” filmmaker also theorized why Damon thought he would rake in the big bucks from “Avatar.”
“Now what he’s done is he’s extrapolated ‘I get 10 percent of the gross on all my films,’” Cameron mused.
The “Terminator” creator said that, in reality, the movie would not have offered 10 percent.
“If, in his mind, that’s what it would’ve taken for him to do ‘Avatar,’ then it wouldn’t have happened,” Cameron pressed. “Trust me on that.”
The director teased that Damon shouldn’t feel bad for missing out on over $120 million when the role was never his to begin with.
“He’s off the hook and doesn’t have to beat himself up anymore,” Cameron joked. “Matt, it’s okay, buddy! You didn’t miss anything.”
Instead, Worthington took on the role and “Avatar” became the highest-grossing film of all time, earning $2.9 billion worldwide.
Damon, meanwhile, has starred in the “Jason Bourne” movies since 2002. The last film hit theaters in 2016.
Cameron told the outlet that he has nothing but respect for the Oscar winner.
“He felt compelled to call me personally and tell me; he said he didn’t want it to come from the agent — that’s an honorable guy,” he detailed. “So all respect to Matt. I’d love to work with him someday. But that never happened. It was a conflation of different things that were happening.”
The Post reached out to Damon’s rep for comment.
Cameron previously spoke out about Damon’s decision to turn down the film.
“He’s beating himself up over this,” he said in a 2022 interview with BBC Radio. “And I really think, you know, ‘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 was nothing we could do about that. So he had to regretfully decline.”
That same year, Damon told Entertainment Weekly: “I will go down in history. You will never meet an actor who turned down more money.”
According to Variety, when asked if Damon could make a cameo in a future “Avatar” movie, he said: “Must do it. We have to do it so the world is in equilibrium again. But he doesn’t get 10%, f–k that.”
A year later, Damon told Chris Wallace that he could not leave production for the 2007 film “Bourne Ultimatum” early.
“I knew that we were gonna 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,” he said in 2023. “And I didn’t wanna do that. I desperately wanted to work with Cameron, ’cause he works so rarely.”
The “Avatar” sequel, “Avatar: The Way of Water,” hit theaters in 2022. The third installment, “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” debuted on Friday.
“Narratively, as it sits in the middle of a planned five films, this is the least satisfying chapter so far,” The Post’s film critic Johnny Oleksinski detailed. “Think more of a ‘Two Towers’ than an ‘Empire Strikes Back,’ which ain’t too shabby.”
“If ‘Fire and Ash’ makes one leap forward, it’s that the main character starts to pass the baton. Jake Sully (Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) are still the heroes, for sure, however their kids Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and adopted Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) are fighting the good fight in ways only they can.”
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