James Cameron said in a recent interview with Rolling Stone that he’s given his filmmaking career entirely to the “Avatar” franchise for decades in the hope of doing good for the world and not just making boat loads of money, which the films have been quite good at doing so far. The director’s original “Avatar” film from 2009 is the highest-grossing movie of all time (unadjusted for inflation) with $2.9 billion. The 2022 sequel, “Avatar: The Way of Water,” is the third highest-grossing movie ever with $2.3 billion.
“I’ve justified making ‘Avatar’ movies to myself for the last 20 years, not based on how much money we made, but on the basis that hopefully it can do some good,” Cameron told the publication. “It can help connect us, it can help connect us to our lost aspect of ourself that connects with nature and respects nature and all those things.”
The director continued, “Do I think that movies are the answer to our human problems? No, I think they’re limited because people sometimes just want entertainment and they don’t want to be challenged in that way. I think ‘Avatar’ is a Trojan horse strategy that gets you into a piece of entertainment, but then works on your brain and your heart a little bit in a way.”
While Cameron is finally trying to branch out of the “Avatar” franchise by developing new movies “The Devils” and “Ghosts of Hiroshima,” he is fully planning to stay put in Pandora for the time being. He’s in post-production on “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” the third movie that arrives in theaters later this year, and recently told Empire that he’s feeling healthy enough to direct “Avatar 4” and “Avatar 5” himself.
“I mean, there’s no reason not to,” Cameron said ahead of his 71st birthday. “I’m healthy, I’m good to go. I’m not going to rule it out. I mean, I’ve got to make it in a vigorous way, to handle the kind of volume and energy of the work for another six or seven years. You know what I mean? I might not be able to do that… [but] if I can, I’ll just do it.”
One would have to go back to 1997’s “Titanic” for the last time Cameron made a movie that wasn’t set on Pandora. His decision to pivot full time to the “Avatar” movies has proven divisive with some cinephiles who cherish Cameron’s non-“Avatar” output. The director told Empire in 2022 that he didn’t mind staying put in one franchise because “Avatar” is “so sprawling that I can tell most of the stories I want to tell within it and try many of the stylistic techniques that I hope to explore.”
“People are always asking us, ‘So why did you just keep working in the same…’ Why did [George] Lucas keep working in the same thing? Why did [Gene] Roddenberry keep working in the same thing?” Cameron added. “Because when you connect with people, why would you squander that? Why would you start over with something else that might not connect?”
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” opens in theaters Dec. 19. Head over to Rolling Stone’s website to read Cameron’s latest interview in its entirety.
