Monday, May 07, 2012

James Cameron to Only Direct "Avatar" Films, Kills All Other Projects


From worstpreviews, Despite the fact that James Cameron has been wanting to make "Battle Angel" and Arnold Schwarzenegger has been hoping to bring him back for "True Lies 2" and possibly as a producer on "Terminator 5." Cameron has now revealed that he will no longer direct any other movies besides "Avatar" installments. He will also stop producing other people's movies.

"I've divided my time over the last 16 years over deep ocean exploration and filmmaking. I've made two movies in 16 years, and I've done eight expeditions. Last year I basically completely disbanded my production company. So I'm not interested in developing anything," he explained. "I'm in the 'Avatar' business. Period. That's it. I'm making 'Avatar 2,' 'Avatar 3,' maybe 'Avatar 4,' and I'm not going to produce other people's movies for them. I'm not interested in taking scripts."

Cameron continued: "All sounds I suppose a little bit restricted, but the point is I think within the 'Avatar' landscape I can say everything I need to say that I think needs to be said, in terms of the state of the world and what I think we need to be doing about it. And doing it in an entertaining way. And anything I can't say in that area, I want to say through documentaries, which I'm continuing. I've done five documentaries in the last 10 years, and I'll hopefully do a lot more."

6 comments:

Octopunk said...

Damn! I was just about to send him a script.

I was thinking of razzing him as being jealous of Avengers success this weekend, but James Cameron will always impress me because of this: he made the highest-grossing movie ever in 1997, and that movie held that spot for over a decade until he himself swept in and beat it. That's pretty cool.

Jordan said...

I love that he said "within the 'Avatar' landscape I can say everything I need to say that I think needs to be said, in terms of the state of the world and what I think we need to be doing about it." It's a perfect summary of his ridiculous attitude about the purpose of the artistic process.

Yeah, Octo, you're right, it's a cool stat, but what's interesting is that I think it says more about his weird capacity for inducing mass hypnosis than it does anything else. Cameron's the only artist I can think of who makes art the fans of which themselves don't even like, later. (Sorry about the mangled syntax of that sentence: I just woke up.) I've had more than one person come up to me and sheepishly say, "You were right about Avatar; it's terrible." (Total strangers on the street! I don't know how they select me for this; it's uncanny.) Same with Titanic: nobody likes it any more. And yeah, it's ten years later, but that didn't stop Star Wars or Die Hard or Psycho or Dawn of the Dead or The Wizard of Oz.

DKC said...

I just thank god it means there won't be a "True Lies 2".

Johnny Sweatpants said...

Cameron is following in George Lucas's footsteps and I will be there to watch the train wreck every step of the way.

Jordan said...

He was there years ago, Johnny. I remember when Terminator 2 had just come out and he said "This is the first $100 million blockbuster to be about promoting world peace."

He's nothing compared to Lucas. He's got some serious game as an action director, and he's very serious about sci-fi environments, but come on. When you take a good hard look at the Terminator franchise, what do you see? Does it come anywhere near to making him a Lucas or a Roddenberry?

It's funny, because we all used to see Schwarzenegger as the weak link in the Terminator chain, but, as we learned over the last few years, he's actually the whole point...without him, there's just a bunch of boring bullshit.

Johnny Sweatpants said...

No, of course he's nowhere near Lucas or Roddenberry. I just compared him to Lucas because he's reached that point in his own little world where he doesn't give a flying fuck about anything anyone but himself has to say.

Wow, I never heard that pompous Terminator 2 quote. It's so stupid it actually makes me like him more. Surely you must admit that his narcissism is amusing. I mean, jokingly or not, he actually said "I'm king of the world!" in his Oscar acceptance speech.

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