in a recent article in the New York Times, Abyss, Aliens, Avatar film-maker James Cameron spoke to NYT correspondent Edward Wong about Chinese film co-production...
Rapidly, almost inevitably, the interview veered onto the subject of 'how far off are the next Avatar films?'
Q: What about scripts that you’re looking at? Is there a project that you’re working on right now? Or subject matters or general areas of interest that you’re looking at?
A: That’s interesting. 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’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.
Q: “Avatar,” of course, said a few things in terms of your world view, including on the environment. And here of course, it was interpreted differently as being about China. Some people online and fans took a kind of political overlay that applied here.
A: Yeah, I’m not too aware of the nuances of that. Other than that there was speculation that it might be problematic for the government, seen as criticism of a resource-hungry nation. Except all the developing or developed nations on the planet are resource-hungry. So the same perspective was in Russia, Europe, Canada and the U.S. I got the biggest political blowback in the U.S., because frankly the U.S. is the most medieval right now when it comes to climate change and the role of business in compromising and devastating the natural world. Way behind Europe. [source NEW YORK TIMES]
And am I bothered? Hell, no, I'm a MASSIVE Avatar fan-boy. Bring it on already!