While promoting his latest blockbuster, James Cameron took the time to reflect on his previous work and owned up to one of his most recent flops.
The filmmaker sat down to dive into Avatar: The Way of Water. The film just opened with an impressive $435 million at the global box office, which happens to be double what one of his latest producer efforts, Terminator: Dark Fate, made its entire run at the box office.
The 2019 film saw Cameron return as producer, bringing back Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton with director Tim Miller. The film was a critical and commercial dud, only bringing in $261 million from a $190 million budget. Now Cameron is addressing the situation and seems to find the root of the problem: his own general disinterest.
Never one to mince words, Cameron told Deadline why he thinks the film didn’t pan out. “I think the problem, and I’m going to wear this one, is that I refused to do it without Arnold. Tim didn’t want Arnold, but I said, ‘Look, I don’t want that. Arnold and I have been friends for 40 years, and I could hear it, and it would go like this: ‘Jim, I can’t believe you’re making a Terminator movie without me.'”
He adds, “It just didn’t mean that much to me to do it, but I said, ‘If you guys could see your way clear to bringing Arnold back and then, you know, I’d be happy to be involved.’ Then Tim wanted Linda. I think what happened is I think the movie could have survived having Linda in it, I think it could have survived having Arnold in it, but when you put Linda and Arnold in it and then, you know, she’s 60-something, he’s 70-something, all of a sudden it wasn’t your ‘Terminator‘ movie, it wasn’t even your dad’s ‘Terminator‘ movie, it was your granddad’s ‘Terminator‘ movie. And we didn’t see that.”
He adds that he felt it worked for what he was attempting, “We loved it; we thought it was cool, you know, that we were making this sort of direct sequel to a movie that came out in 1991. And young moviegoing audiences weren’t born. They wouldn’t even have been born for another ten years.”
Cameron also went on to hint at the franchise’s potential future, stating: “”If I were to do another Terminator film and maybe try to launch that franchise again, which is in discussion, but nothing has been decided, I would make it much more about the AI side of it than bad robots gone crazy.”
SEE ALSO: How to Refurbish the Terminator Franchise
Cameron hopes to see his Avatar sequel, The Way of Water, fare better with critics and audiences. The film has already passed the half billion dollar mark and has barely entered the holiday season. We shall see if the long-awaited sequel will have legs, but at least it’s already surpassed the horrid Terminator: Dark Fate returns.
