James Cameron interview for Avatar – Long before James Cameron shot a frame of Titanic he was working on a movie so ambitious and futuristic that it would be another 14 years before technology caught up with him and he could film it the way he wanted to.
The long-planned and much-hyped £160 million 3D science-fiction extravaganza Avatar will finally be released around the world just before Christmas, 12 years after Titanic, which was 55‑year-old Cameron’s last feature film and remains the biggest box-office hit of all time.
That record could be overtaken by the visually astonishing Avatar, whose ground-breaking techniques and spectacular effects are likely to revolutionise filmmaking and will set standards for years to come.
Cameron, whose filmmaking has always been notable for its technological innovations, explained it simply: “I basically sat down and put everything in this that I ever wanted to see in a movie – and that’s why it’s such a grab-bag of visual concepts.”
With a cup of coffee in hand and looking relaxed and in a pair of jeans and casual shirt, he was talking in his private projection room after screening 30 minutes of Avatar to a small invited group. It is impossible not to be fascinated and enthralled by his action-filled 3D vision of adventure and battles in an iridescent jungle on an alien planet, where hideous, dragon-like creatures appear to leap off the screen, flora and fauna wave in the air and a heroic avatar does battle with a pterodactyl-like beast before subduing it and soaring off on its back.