‘Avatar’: James Cameron Says ‘The Way Of Water’ Female Empowerment Bests MCU And DC Studios

After two weeks in theaters, James Cameron‘s “Avatar: The Way Of Water” passed $1.1 billion at the global box office. A strong start, but will it reach Cameron’s desired gross of matching or surpassing the 2009 film’s 2.923 billion gross? Only time will tell.

When you think of a classic James Cameron action film, such as “Terminator,” “T2: Judgment Day,” “True Lies,” and definitely “Aliens,” you think about huge, violent action set pieces with lots and lots of guns. Today, Cameron is a different type of filmmaker, especially when it comes to gun violence, and he’s not sure if he could ever go back to the type of action he did previously.

“I had a bit of a crisis of faith as we were cutting the movie together,” admitted James Cameron of his billion-dollar-grossing Avatar: The Way of Water. “It was too violent. I wanted a balance between the beauty, the epiphany, the kind of spiritual aspect of the film, with the action, and I felt it had gotten a little too grim.”

It’s no secret that James Cameron wants the world of Pandora in his “Avatar” franchise to look as realistic as possible. But it’s not all about digital verisimilitude for the director; it’s a practical feature in casting, too.

As Avatar: The Way of Water continues to blow up worldwide, James Cameron has indicated he’s game-planning far into the future.

As Avatar: The Way of Water continues to blow up worldwide, James Cameron has indicated he’s game-planning far into the future.

More than a year ago, Matt Damon was at the Cannes Film Festival talking to an audience, and the actor shared an embarrassing story. He revealed that James Cameron called him up and offered him the lead in “Avatar,” and the filmmaker even offered him a lucrative deal worth 10% of the film’s profits if he would do it.

Even the most staunch “Avatar” haters have to agree that James Cameron puts so much blood, sweat, and tears into the franchise in an insane attempt to make the most beautiful, technologically advanced films of all time. And yet, as was pointed out in a popular sketch on “Saturday Night Live,” the franchise’s logo just uses the simple Papyrus font that anyone can use for free.

James Cameron’s epic “Avatar: The Way Of Water” film is in theaters now, and it grossed $430 million this weekend globally—the second-highest global opening of 2022 after “Doctor Strange And The Multiverse of Madness.” There’s been talk that this is a low figure, or disappointing or whatever—to be fair, the film was tracking to anywhere as high as $170 million domestic, and the film only grossed $134 million in North America, which is a bit soft—one has to remember the context of a lot of December releases which tend to have a slow build.

James Cameron likes his female heroines as strong and capable as possible. For instance, take Sigourney Weaver‘s Ellen Ripley in “Aliens” or Linda Hamilton‘s Sarah Connor in “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.” But according to Cameron, Kate Winslet‘s Ronal in “Avatar: The Way Of Water” is the director’s most “empowering” female action hero yet.

When James Cameron delivered Avatar in 2009, none of us quite grasped that this was not a movie but a constellation of movies – one that will represent a multibillion-dollar investment in the coming years. One iteration is even booked for 2028.

As “Avatar: The Way Of Water‘ hits theaters everywhere tomorrow, questions about the long-awaited sequel abound. Will the film be another massive cash cow for Jim Cameron? Does the “Avatar” franchise have any cultural caché after thirteen years between the first and second movies? Will Cameron make all five films he has mapped out for the series? It all hinges on how “The Way Of Water” does at the box office this weekend.

When it was announced that Tim Miller and James Cameron were going to team up to wipe the slate clean with the “Terminator” franchise and present the real sequel to “T2,” fans were elated. Finally, we’d be getting a quality “Terminator” film after all of these years.

James Cameron always swings for the fences — no singles, doubles, triples or even stealing home for him — and he’s hit a grand slam with the long-awaited Avatar: The Way of Water. This second installment in a five-film series of Avatar features from 20th Century Studios/Disney (with three more to open at two-year intervals through 2028) more than fulfills the promise of the original, which was released in 2009, before some of its fans were even born. The film is beautiful, obsessive and eventful, a depiction of a veritable Eden threatened by voraciously destructive forces both natural and man-made. No one who enthused over the original would think of missing this follow-up, which ups the ante for all that is to come, creatively and financially.

Over the course of 2022, a Nicole Kidman-narrated ad for AMC Theatres has evolved from a campy meme into something of a communal prayer offered at the secular chapel of the movie theater. The fragments she incants evocatively describe the power of cinema when wielded at its maximalist best: “we go somewhere we’ve never been before,” “dazzling images on a huge silver screen,” “sound I can feel.” The year ends for audiences with a movie that genuinely deserves to follow such a paean: James Cameron’s long-delayed, much-anticipated “Avatar: The Way of Water.” READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2022 The specious claims that the original “Avatar” had no cultural impact evaporate all but instantly when Cameron plunges viewers back into the realm of Pandora.

The King of the World won’t be at the L.A. premiere tonight for Avatar: The Way of Water after testing positive for Covid.