James Cameron says he’s in the “Avatar business.” So, what does that mean?

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

The technologically progressive director known as James Cameron took a break from sub-diving and inventing new cameras to let fly a few facts about his career projection, which really shouldn’t be that big of a surprise.

Still, some of his answers from a New York Times interview may dampen your spirits a bit, especially if you were ever hoping to see Cameron tackle BATTLE ANGEL ALITA, TRUE LIES 2, or “gasp” another TERMINATOR. 

I’ll let him explain:

“Last year I basically completely disbanded my production company’s development arm. So I’m not interested in developing anything. 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. And that 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. In fact, I’m doing one right now, which is on this, the Deep Sea Challenge project that we just completed the first expedition. So that’ll be a film that’ll get made this year and come out first quarter of next year.”

So, there you have it.  Cameron is using the AVATAR franchise to tell all his stories, which seem to involve technological advancements, deep-sea diving, and saving the environment.  I find Cameron to be an enigmatic filmmaker.  He’s given us some outstanding films (ALIENS, TRUE LIES, TERMINATOR) and some bloated and overrated ones (AVATAR, TITANIC), but there’s no denying his accomplishments in the filmmaking community.

However, it seems odd that he would restrict himself to one venue to tell all his stories.  Technically, AVATAR was amazing, but storywise I felt it had a multitude of hyperbolic stereotypes.

Cameron has a very high, gold-plated soapbox, which we saw in AVATAR and it seems now it will be his crown jewel.  Nothing like blue-skinned, mo-cap aliens telling you how to live, right?  Either way, it looks like AVATAR is here to stay and for at least another decade.

So, let’s hear it, Schmoes…is this good or bad news for you?