Almost every day, a story of a tragic act of gun violence plagues social media and the news. Now, some filmmakers are considering that when crafting their Hollywood projects.
One of those directors is James Cameron, the man behind this year’s hit film Avatar: The Way of Water. He sat down with Esquire Middle East for a new interview and says the way he creates action movies as a director is different in the wake of the real-world violence he sees.
The conversation starts with the outlet by Cameron claiming he loves living in New Zealand. “I’m happy to be living in New Zealand, where they just banned all assault rifles two weeks after that horrific mosque shooting a couple of years ago,” says Cameron.
He adds that he couldn’t make movies like he used to, given works like Terminator and Aliens often painted gun violence in a good light. Cameron tells Esquire Middle East, “I look back on some films that I’ve made, and I don’t know if I would want to make that film now. I don’t know if I would want to fetishize the gun, like I did on a couple of Terminator movies 30-plus years ago, in our current world. What’s happening with guns in our society turns my stomach.”
He says this made him look at his own work and decided to make some changes. Cameron claims, “I actually cut about 10 minutes of the movie [Avatar: The Way of Water] targeting gunplay action. I wanted to get rid of some of the ugliness, to find a balance between light and dark. You have to have conflict, of course. Violence and action are the same thing, depending on how you look at it. This is the dilemma of every action filmmaker, and I’m known as an action filmmaker.”
Audiences don’t seem to mind any trimmed-down action with guns, as Avatar: The Way of Water has already passed the billion dollar mark at the global box office after just two weeks of release.
Set more than a decade after the events of the first film, “Avatar: The Way of Water” begins to tell the story of the Sully family (Jake, Neytiri, and their kids), the trouble that follows them, the lengths they go to keep each other safe, the battles they fight to stay alive, and the tragedies they endure.
Avatar: The Way of Water is directed by James Cameron and sees Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Matt Gerald, Dileep Rao, Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi, and Sigourney Weaver all reprising their roles from the 2009 blockbuster, while new additions to the cast include Kate Winslet, Oona Chaplin, Cliff Curtis, Britain Dalton, Filip Geljo, Jamie Flatters, Bailey Bass, Trinity Bliss, Jack Champion, Duane Evans Jr., Edie Falco, Brendan Cowell, Michelle Yeoh, Jemaine Clement, Keston John, and CJ Jones.
