James Cameron is a man of many talents — deep sea photography being the most recent — but he’s also the name behind many great movies, as well as a few not-so-great ones. All those are behind him now, though; according to the man himself the only thing that he’s going to be making from now on are Avatar movies.
Avatar, is, apparently, all that needs to be said about anything. Anything at all. Cameron was interviewed by The New York Times and when asked about future projects, he had this to say:
“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.”
Documentaries are still a possibility, apparently. And on the subject of Avatar sequels:
“We’ve spent the last year and a half on software development and pipeline development. The virtual production methodology was extremely prototypical on the first film. As then, no one had ever done it before and we didn’t even know for two and half years into it and $100 million into it if it was going to work. So we just wanted to make our lives a whole lot easier so that we can spend a little more of our brainpower on creativity. It was a very, very uphill battle on the first film. So we’ve been mostly working on the tool set, the production pipeline, setting up the new stages in Los Angeles, setting up the new visual effects pipeline in New Zealand, that sort of thing. And, by the way, writing. We haven’t gotten to the design stage yet. That’ll be the next.”
The full interview is a nice lengthy read, especially if you’re keen on how the movie business differs between the US and China. [New York Times via Collider]
Image: National Geographic