James Cameron clarifies Matt Damon’s viral claim that he turned down 10 per cent of ‘Avatar’ profits

Filmmaker James Cameron has addressed actor Matt Damon’s long-circulating claim that he turned down the lead role in Avatar along with a lucrative share of the film’s profits, saying the version widely believed online is “not exactly true.”

For years, Damon has spoken publicly about being offered the role of Jake Sully in the 2009 blockbuster in exchange for 10 per cent of the film’s gross, a deal that would have translated into hundreds of millions of dollars given Avatar’s global earnings of USD 2.9 billion. The role eventually went to Australian actor Sam Worthington, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

“Jim Cameron called me — he offered me 10 per cent of Avatar,” Damon says in the clips. “You will never meet an actor who turned down more money than me … I was in the middle of shooting the Bourne movie 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 … [Cameron] was really lovely, he said: ‘If you don’t do this, this movie doesn’t really need you. It doesn’t need a movie star at all. The movie is the star, the idea is the star, and it’s going to work. But if you do it, I’ll give you 10 per cent of the movie.’”

However, speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Cameron said Damon was never formally offered the part. “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. But I really have to do this Jason Bourne movie. I’ve agreed to it, it’s a direct conflict, and so, regretfully, I have to turn it down.’ But he was never offered. There was never a deal,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The director added that discussions never progressed to character details or negotiations. “We never talked about the character. We never got to that level. It was simply an availability issue,” he said.

Addressing the widely shared belief that Damon turned down a massive payday, Cameron said the actor may have unintentionally merged separate ideas over time. “What he’s done is extrapolate ‘I get 10 percent of the gross on all my films,’” Cameron said, adding that such a deal would not have happened in this case. “So he’s off the hook and doesn’t have to beat himself up anymore.”

New documents in a lawsuit against Priscilla Presley’s son include claims that Elvis Presley’s granddaughter Riley Keough is the biological parent of John Travolta and the late Kelly Preston’s youngest child, Benjamin.

Priscilla Presley’s former business partner Brigitte Kruse and associate Kevin Fialko filed an amended complaint against Navarone Garcia in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Tuesday. Included in the allegations are claims that the “Daisy Jones & the Six” actor, daughter of the late Lisa Marie Presley, gave her eggs to Travolta and Preston in exchange for “an old Jaguar” and “between $10,000 – $20,000.”

According to the complaint, “the entire Presley family clamored for control of the estate and for pay-outs” immediately after Lisa Marie Presley’s death in 2023. Among those who allegedly approached Kruse was Lisa Marie’s ex-husband Michael Lockwood, with whom she shared twin daughters Harper and Finley Lockwood. Kruse and Fialko were allegedly tasked with acting as negotiators and mediators amid the “family chaos.”

The document details how Lockwood said Travolta and Preston had “previously used Lisa Marie’s eggs to get pregnant” because Preston “had been unable to bear her own children.” It was unclear whether Presley’s eggs produced a child. Preston died in 2020 at age 57 after a two-year battle with breast cancer.

Lockwood also allegedly said the couple had approached the Presley family again “in or around 2010” but Travolta “no longer wanted to use Lisa Marie’s eggs because they did not want ‘eggs with heroin’ on them.” According to the filing, a deal was “orchestrated” in which “Riley Keough gave her eggs to Travolta so that Kelly could give birth to their son, Ben Travolta” and “Riley was given an old Jaguar and paid between $10,000 – $20,000 for the deal.”

Included in the filing is an image of a handwritten note that features the words “Kelly Preston carried baby,” “medical bills paid” and “old Jaguar 1990s-ish,” as well as a screenshot of messages presumably exchanged with Priscilla Presley that describe Ben Travolta as her “beautiful great-grandson.”

Lockwood further allegedly claimed that “the entire arrangement required a ‘sign off’ from the Church of Scientology, which heavily involved Priscilla’s oversight.” According to the document, Lockwood “demanded” the information be used “to orchestrate a settlement for him and his daughters,” whom he said were “financially destitute.”

Kruse and Fialko’s amended complaint against Garcia alleges that he “threw a tantrum, demanding [they] keep Riley’s and Travolta’s son out of the press, since Priscilla [had] promised him that he would be the only male musician in the family and would now be the ‘king.’” The document also claims “Priscilla’s love for Navarone was, and always has been, incestuous.”

The filing is the latest in the legal feud involving Presley and her former business partner. Presley previously filed a lawsuit against Kruse and her associates alleging fraud and elder abuse. Kruse and Fialko, meanwhile, are suing Presley for fraud and breach of contract.

“After losing motion after motion in this case, and unsuccessfully seeking to have Presley’s counsel of record, Marty Singer, disqualified from representing her in this matter, Brigitte Kruse, Kevin Fialko, and their co-conspirators have demonstrated that there is no bar too low, no ethical line that they are unwilling to cross in an effort to cause further pain to Priscilla Presley and her family,” Presley’s attorneys Singer and Wayne Harman said in a statement to TMZ.

“In a completely improper effort to exert undue pressure on Presley to retract her legitimate, truthful claims, Kruse and her co-conspirators have also sued Presley’s son, cousin, and assistant,” the statement continued. “These recent outrageous allegations have absolutely nothing to do with the claims in this case. The conduct of Kruse, Fialko, and their new lawyers (they are on their fourth set of attorneys) is shameful, and it absolutely will be addressed in court.”

Representatives for Keough did not respond immediately Thursday to The Times’ request for comment.

Santa left us a present this holiday season and it is exactly what we didn’t know we needed: A twisty, psychological horror-thriller with nudity that’s all wrapped up in an empowerment message.

“The Housemaid” is Paul Feig’s delicious, satirical look at the secret depravity of the ultra-rich, but it’s so well constructed that’s it’s not clear who’s naughty or nice. Halfway through, the movie zigs and everything you expected zags.

It’s almost impossible to thread the line between self-winking campy — “That’s a lot of bacon. Are you trying to kill us?” — and carving someone’s stomach with a broken piece of fine china, yet Feig and screenwriter Rebecca Sonnenshine do.

Sydney Sweeney stars as a down-on-her luck Millie Calloway, a gal with a troubled past living out of her car who answers an ad for a live-in housekeeper in a tony suburb of New York City. Her resume is fraudulent, as are her references.

Somehow, the madam of the mansion, Nina Winchester played with frosty excellence by Amanda Seyfried in pearls and creamy knits, takes a shine to this young soul. “I have a really good feeling about this, Millie,” she says in that perky, slightly crazed clipped way that Seyfried always slays with. “This is going to be fun, Millie.”

Maybe not for Millie, but definitely for us. The young housekeeper gets her own room in the attic — weird that it closes with a deadbolt from the outside, but no matter — and we’re off. Mille gets a smartphone with the family’s credit card preloaded and a key for that deadbolt. “What kind of monsters are we?” asks Nina. Indeed.

The next day, the house is a mess when the housekeeper comes down and Seyfried is in a wide-eyed, crashing-plates, full-on psychotic rage. The sweet, supportive woman we met the day before is gone. But her hunky husband (Brandon Sklenar) is helpful and apologetic. And smoldering. Uh-oh. Did we mention he’s hunky?

If at first we understand that the housekeeper is being a little manipulative — lying to get the job, for instance, or wearing glasses to seem more serious — we soon realize that all kinds of gaslighting games are being played behind these gates, and they’re much more impactful.

Based on Freida McFadden’s novel, “The Housemaid” rides waves of manipulation and then turns the tables on what we think we’ve just seen, looking at male-female power structures and how privilege can trap people without it.

The film is as good looking as the actors, with nifty touches like having the main house spare, well-lit and bright, while the husband’s private screening room in the basement is done in a hellish red. There are little jokes throughout, like the husband and the housemaid bonding over old episodes of “Family Feud,” with the name saying it all.

Feig and his team also have fun with horror movie conventions, like having a silent, foreboding groundskeeper, adding a creepy dollhouse and placing lightning and thunder during a pivotal scene. They surround the mansion with fussy, aristocratic PTA moms who have tea parties and say things like “You know what yoga means to me.”

Feig’s fascinating combination of gore, torture and hot sex ends happily, capped off with Taylor Swift’s perfectly conjured “I Did Something Bad” playing over the end credits. Not at all: This naughty movie is definitely on the nice list.

“The Housemaid,” a Lionsgate release that’s in theaters Friday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for strong bloody violence, gore, language, sexuality/nudity and drug use. Running time: 131 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.

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