Avatar: The Way of Water already has plenty of great action sequences, but some of them were originally meant to be even longer and more dramatic, according to James Cameron, who spoke to Esquire Middle East in a new interview and revealed that he had cut 10 minutes of gunplay action from the sequel because he looks at guns differently these days.
“I actually cut about 10 minutes of the movie targeting gunplay action,” Cameron told the publication for an article titled “The Avatar franchise is the moral quest of James Cameron’s life.”
“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.”
Cameron goes on to suggest that he wouldn’t make a Terminator film again for similar reasons, although recent reports would suggest that there are ongoing talks about resurrecting the franchise:
“I look back on some films that I’ve made, and I don’t know if I would want to make that film now,” the director explained. “I don’t know if I would want to fetishize the gun, like I did on a couple of Terminator movies 30+ years ago, in our current world. What’s happening with guns in our society turns my stomach.”
Avatar: The Way of Water has already flown past the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office despite only releasing two weeks ago, with reports from yesterday noting that the film had passed $300 million domestically.
The worldwide gross of Avatar: The Way of Water at the time of this posting is $1,030,118,839, according to numbers from Box Office Mojo.
Filming on Avatar 3, which is slated for release in 2024, is reportedly 95% complete.