news culture Cinema in the midst of a revolution: the boss of Avatar has surprising ideas
James Cameron is a man who has ideas and who, above all, is not afraid of anything. Pushing the limits of cinema is something he is used to and his latest statements suggest that the director could well come up with a new format that is a bit… long. Literally.
Since his debut, James Cameron has accustomed us to shaking up the codes of cinema: from the Terminator to Titanic via Abyss or the last two Avatars, the American is accustomed to box office records and avant-garde technologies, even if it means what the realization of his projects take a decade. Imagine that he has another project in mind that could well be talked about.
It was during an interview with Variety that the filmmaker confided in this idea that has been bothering him for a while now:
I want to make a film that lasts six hours and two and a half hours at the same time.
Do not shout at the kamoulox: James Cameron actually wants to offer two versions of the same film. The first, very long, would be broadcast on SVOD platforms while the second would focus only on the highlights, for all those who would not like to give so much time to a feature film, with a cinema broadcast.
You can stream it for six hours, or you can go somewhere else and have a more condensed, kind of roller coaster, immersive version of this experience in a movie theater. It would be the same movie, it’s just that one is the novel and the other is the real feature. Why not ? Let’s just use these platforms in a way that has never been done before.
A real project for future Avatars?
If it took twelve years to see the sequel to Avatar in the cinema, this will not be the case for the next iterations of the saga: Avatar 3 will be released in December 2024, Avatar 4 in 2026 and Avatar 5 in 2028. A perfectly well-honed plan for a long time now and besides, the third chapter is already in full gestation.
Therefore, to say, Cameron recently confessed last week that the first version of Avatar 3 was nine hours long. Nine o’clock ! Even more amazing, the director would insist on applying all the special effects on this first version, after which he would only cut to offer a final and shortened version (comments from a leaker, relayed by the podcast The Hot Mic).
Inevitably, his statement on his double-format film could correspond to his plans for Avatar. What if the third part of the series was first offered in a traditional version in the cinema, before being offered on Disney Plus in an (ultra) long version of six hours?
