The New, Improved James Cameron Wants to Reintroduce You to ‘Avatar’

I think I felt, at the time, that we clashed over certain things. For example, the studio felt that the film should be shorter and that there was too much flying around on the ikran — what the humans call the banshees. Well, it turns out that’s what the audience loved the most, in terms of our exit polling and data gathering. And that’s a place where I just drew a line in the sand and said, “You know what? I made ‘Titanic.’ This building that we’re meeting in right now, this new half-billion dollar complex on your lot? ‘Titanic.’ paid for that, so I get to do this.” And afterward, they thanked me. I feel that my job is to protect their investment, often against their own judgment. But as long as I protect their investment, all is forgiven.

What do you think has changed about the movie industry in the years since its release?

The negative factors are obvious. We’ve got a turn of the world toward easy access in the home, and that has to do a lot with the rise of streaming in general, and the pandemic, where we literally had to risk our lives to go to the movie theater. On the positive side, we see a resurgence of the theater experience. People are craving that. We’re still down about 20 percent from prepandemic levels, but it’s slowly building back. Partly it’s been because of a dearth of top titles that people would want to see in a theater. But “Avatar” is the poster child for that. This is the type of film that you have to see in a theater.

Does knowing audiences want that blockbuster experience put more pressure on you?

I’ve always thrived in that scenario. The danger has been that there are so many big movies coming out all the time and we were always jostling for place. That’s why I recommended to Fox that we push “Titanic” till Christmas, because we’d have a clear playing field in January and February, and that worked out beautifully. The same strategy worked well with “Avatar.” And of course we’re going into the same date with “The Way of Water.” But we’re not jostling as much now because there aren’t as many big tentpoles.

There’s a sense of responsibility to do the best job we can and make it a moneymaker. But I don’t how that translates artistically to any decision I make on the movie. I don’t say, Hmmm, let’s put that plant over there because we’ll make more money. It doesn’t work that way. When it’s good enough, you kind of know.