Sure, he may have spent years creating the most technologically advanced photorealistic 3-D environment in film history, grossed more than $2.6 billion, and yet somehow ended up with almost no fan base for it, but that doesn’t mean James Cameron isn’t hip. He knows that kids (and adults) are into the Star Wars franchise—specifically, going to see those movies opening weekend, and likely a couple more times afterwards. (Or even all of them in one sitting.) Point being, Ladies Love Cool James Cameron isn’t about to challenge that entertainment behemoth: In a new interview with Famous Monsters Of Filmland, the iconic director admits he isn’t about to do something as dumb as try to compete at the box office with the world George Lucas invented.
“My original plan was to release them a year apart, but we’re opening that up. If for no other reason than that I don’t want to land on the same date as one of the Star Wars sequels. That wouldn’t be fair to them,” Cameron says while laughing, presumably at the idea that he ever thought he could stick to releasing one movie a year. “No, that’s just good business. I don’t want to go head-to-head with Star Wars. That would be stupid. And hopefully they won’t want to go head-to-head with us.” Left unsaid is how he hopes to possibly compete with the threatening onslaught of continuous Adam Sandler movies on Netflix.
Cameron (or “J.C.” as he probably insists his friends call him) also revealed the four Avatar sequels he promised will be shooting simultaneously—”the way you would shoot a miniseries”—a process he compares to filming all three Godfather movies at the same time. (Although a better comparison might be making three Godfather Part IIIs at the same time.) And despite his claim it will be “the most challenging thing I’ve ever done,” he sounds excited. “I want more photography…like, if I was doing the Alien Queen, I would want photography to show the exact way that the slime drools off the curl of a lip and caught the light in a certain type of very low-key lighting.” The slime-filled dreams of James Cameron, everybody.