“What are the other stories I want to tell?” James Cameron has asked himself in a new interview, as the filmmaker again hints at life after Avatar. Whether you love the Avatar franchise or not, James Cameron’s cycle of feline sci-fi fantasies has kept him busy for over 20 years at this point. He began ... Avatar | James Cameron again indicates a desire to move beyond the cats from space
“What are the other stories I want to tell?” James Cameron has asked himself in a new interview, as the filmmaker again hints at life after Avatar.
Whether you love the Avatar franchise or not, James Cameron’s cycle of feline sci-fi fantasies has kept him busy for over 20 years at this point.
He began developing the technology for the first film in 2000s, following the blockbusting success of Titanic, and aside from the odd documentary and some producing bits and pieces, Cameron has remained on the exotic world of Pandora ever since.
There have been signs, however, that he’s starting to think about a filmmaking career beyond Avatar, with the director having talked in the recent past about his interest in making an adaptation of Joe Abercrombie’s novel, The Devils.
Last December, in the build-up to the release of Avatar: Fire And Ash, he talked about rebooting the Terminator franchise. “I want to do new stuff that people aren’t imagining,” he said.
Now, World Of Reel has uncovered a little-seen interview that Cameron gave in July, recorded as he received a prestigious Governor General’s Performing Arts Award.
Proudly wearing a Lifetime Artistic Achievement medal around his neck, Cameron talked about his Canadian roots and career to date, and again expressed his desire to look beyond the Avatar franchise.
“There’s been momentum in the Avatar universe for 21 years at this point because we started in 2005,” Cameron said. “It’s been kind of an unbroken continuum. So this is the point where I’m looking at the landscape and asking, ‘What are the other stories I want to tell? How many of them do I need to direct myself versus writing and/or producing with other filmmakers?”
Now in his 70s, Cameron says he’s begun to map out the next stage of his career under a specific criterion: “What will do the most good.”
“I started looking at the projects that I’m most fond of and started, ‘How’s this going to improve our condition? How’s that going to make the world better for our kids?’ And it’s that fine line because you don’t want to be too didactic or shrill about things, and you’ve got to engage with great stories.”
It could be that Cameron concludes that the project that will “make the world better” is a fourth Avatar film, given its ecological messaging. Or he could have an idea for Terminator that taps into our collective anxieties about AI. Or maybe he has some original project none of us have previously heard about.
We’ll bring you more as we hear it; until then, the full interview with Cameron can be found below.
