James Cameron’s Brutally Honest Message For Avatar Haters

Ahead of a July 7 issue with a cover story on Avatar: The Way of Water, Empire magazine published an excerpt of an interview with James Cameron online. In it, he shared his thoughts on both reviews of the first Avatar movie, as well as what he thinks could be a major point of contention with some reviewers of its upcoming sequel.

Regarding “Avatar,” Cameron brought up that some people who saw the film around the release date now report that they can’t remember character names or plot details. “Then they watch the movie again and say, ‘Oh, okay, excuse me, let me just shut up now.’ So I’m not worried about that,” he told Empire.

Cameron then spoke about expecting critics to challenge Avatar: The Way of Water’s roughly three-hour runtime. He called this pettiness perceived as disingenuous given that today’s consumers often watch TV for hours at a time. “I watched my kids do five hour-long episodes in a row. Here’s the big social paradigm shift that needs to happen: It’s okay to get up and go pee,” he said.

For what it’s worth, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, producer Jon Landau described “Avatar 2” as significantly larger than its predecessor, possibly leading to its inflated running time. Fans and haters alike can catch “Avatar: The Way of Water” when it premieres on December 16th.