A digital remaster of Titanic which will be hitting theaters again on December 1st 2017 and Vanity Fair got some downtime with the King of Pandora and one of the rulers of our planet; James-wears a Rolex-Cameron.
What’s interesting is Disney’s recent talks of buying 20th Century Fox and, well, Avatar would be well fitted to Disney and it seems that these days Disney may have more financial investment in James Cameron and Avatar than anyone had anticipated… there are legal issues to overcome in regard to Disney being able to own a certain amount of companies/networks but money can usually make those kinds of problems go away and if it did happen Mr. Cameron seems happy to get more involved with Disney but if Terminator ever goes Disney on our asses; count TheTerminatorFans.com out, we’ve had it to the back teeth with PG-13.
VF: You made Titanic for 20th Century Fox, which has been your longtime studio home. And you’re making the Avatar sequels for them, but there are reports now that the Murdochs are interested in selling the movie studio. What would that mean for you and your films?
Probably not that much. I’ve always had a good relationship with Fox. If they sold to Disney that wouldn’t be bad because Disney actually at this point in time has a bigger investment in Avatar than Fox does in terms of spent money.
In this interesting interview Jim talks about the delays with Avatar 2, 3, 4 and 5… but here is what concerns us- did he really just tell Terminator fans- if you don’t go see Avatar 2 and 3 and it makes no money I’ll come back to Terminator and Avatar 4 and 5 won’t get made. Welll… he kind of did just say that in a round about way…
Let’s face it, if Avatar 2 and 3 don’t make enough money, there’s not going to be a 4 and 5. They’re fully encapsulated stories in and of themselves. It builds across the five films to a greater kind of meta narrative, but they’re fully formed films in their own right, unlike, say, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, where you really just had to sort of go, “Oh, shit, all right, well I guess I better come back next year.” Even though that all worked and everybody did.
Wait though… Avatar 2 and 3 may just kill it at the box office and if they do then we will be waiting for the day James has his oxygen mask, a golf buggy and a Steven Hawking communication device that has the voice of god and quick one button access to swear words.
So, back on subject,- are we going to love Avatar? We’ve made no secret that Avatar just isn’t out bag, we prefer our subject matter darker, scarier and more relentless but we wish Jim the best of success with Avatar regardless- yes, it does annoy us that it’s keeping him too busy to direct another hardcore Terminator movie scarier than the first and with a pinch of spectacle and action from the second but James Cameron does what James Cameron wants because he’s James Cameron and that’s the way it is.
VF: Will the Avatar sequels deal with some of the similar themes you addressed in the first film, in particular, the environment?
It will be a natural extension of all the themes, and the characters, and the spiritual undercurrents. Basically, if you loved the first movie, you’re gonna love these movies, and if you hated it, you’re probably gonna hate these. If you loved it at the time, and you said later you hated it, you’re probably gonna love these.
In Jim’s defense we do know some people who really do like Ferngully *ahem* sorry, Avatar. So he definitely does have a fan base and people who will flock to see the sequels- that and the lucrative Asian 3D market could make Avatar 2 and 3 do very well at the box office; or is the sequel gap too large and has it gone stale? The same can be said for Terminator as James Cameron also said fans and audiences could be suffering “Terminator fatigue” and yes, we are suffering it but although James Cameron is busy behind the scenes- he hasn’t ground his good name into the dirt just yet- he is retaining a hypothetical Hollywood crown to some degree because he isn’t chucking movies out left right and center or being critiqued as harshly on his work as other directors.
James Cameron seems locked down to green screen film-making (both literally and in an eco sense) and we would like to see him go back to his roots and hopefully (when he has Avatar out his system) he could perhaps make one last Terminator movie and maybe direct a serious drama or real life biopic/story.
VF: And the Terminator film, how is that going?
We’re cranking along. . . . It’s the first of three, the story is mapped out over a three-film arc, but again, if we don’t make any money there isn’t gonna be a two and a three. Technically, we’re thinking of them as three, four, and five. As if Terminator,and Terminator 2 exist, and the other ones are kind of alternate time lines that are no longer relevant.
VF: What made you want to return to that world?
I just feel like the world we live in now is going to be very much defined by our co-evolution with our technology. While technology and innovation have this vast promise for our survival, it’s also an enormous threat, especially when it comes to strong [artificial intelligence] being coupled with weaponized robotics, and that’s all coming. It’s just a question of who gets there first, it’s gonna be the next big arms race, it’s gonna be like the next race to get the bomb . . . And when you couple that with the kind of wired world that we live in, where we’ve basically given away our privacy and every single person walking around that’s got a smartphone is essentially a belled cat—a walking sensor platform that can be monitored from afar—it’s like we’re really on the cusp of an Orwellian Armageddon of inconceivable proportions. Therefore, I thought, hey, let’s make a movie about that. So it’s going to be a very cheerful and upbeat kind of film.
Thankfully good old sarcastic Jim is obviously taking the proverbial piss with a dry sense of humor but if he is being serious then get ready for some uproar because fans are tired of the comedy and you did start it with T2 Jim- the other filmmakers just followed you like rats to the pied piper and they walked right in the river but maybe that was the intention.
Does Terminator 6 already sound like a recycled version of Terminator Genisys; an Aged Terminator, Cell Phone take over- hopefully this will be a fresh take and not look dated when the iphone 7000X hits stores in 20 years. If cell phones from the 80s look like bricks then cell phones today will look like houses. Pea sized mobile phones could exist one day or augmented reality cell phone earpieces and brain chip sets- who knows what the crazy freak ass future holds.
The plot for Terminator 6 so far? (read in an honest movie trailers guy voice):
Sarah Connor, Dani Ramos and a strange Aged Terminator who behaves more than human take on a horde of relentless drones, cell phones and a hispanic Terminator in New Mexico.
What Terminator 6 should be… (again read in an honest movie trailers guy voice):
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 comes from the future to try to kill Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor but she’s gonna kick the living fucking tissue out him but he’s then gonna kill the entire FBI and a million people in the process of trying to kill her. In 1984 he was the phone-book killer; this time he’s the Facebook killer… looking for every Sarah Connor on social networks but Sarah Connor doesn’t have a Facebook or a Twitter,- she doesn’t even have a cell phone.
Regardless, check out the great read over at Vanity Fair; feminist James Cameron also talks about nearly getting into a fight with that horrid Harvey Weinstein fella.
James Cameron has contributed to the story of Terminator 6 with 7 other writers, he will Executive Produce and Creative Consult on the upcoming Terminator 2 Sequel.
Source: Vanity Fair