James Cameron is currently in the cinema with Avatar: The Way of Water, a sequel to the beloved 2009 film. The filmmaker is therefore engaged in a press tour to discuss his project and career. In an interview with Esquire Middle East, he remembered one of his most famous films, Terminator. Cameron has explained that he probably wouldn’t make it today.
The excessive quantities of gun violence included in movies like True Lies and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, according to Cameron, have no place in moral filmmaking, given the status of the world today. Cameron acknowledges that his movies have frequently been overly violent.
I look back on some films I have made, and I do not know if I would want to make that film now. I do not know if I would like to fetishize the gun, as I did in a couple of Terminator movies 30+ years ago in our current world. What is happening with guns in our society turns my stomach,” says Cameron.
The director struggled with his current aversion to gratuitous violence during the making of Avatar: The Way of Water, eventually deciding to scrap many weapon actions he deemed unnecessary.
I cut about 10 minutes of the movie targeting gunplay action. 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, depending on how you view them. This is the dilemma of every action filmmaker, and I’m known as an action filmmaker,” says Cameron.
Via – Esquire
