James Cameron Wants the ‘Avatar’ Sequels to Be More Like ‘The Godfather’
He also trash talked the Avengers movies.
Director James Cameron has revealed his ambitions for the Avatar franchise. He wants it to take on a more intimate approach, revealing he used The Godfather as inspiration for the sequel.
“I found myself as a father of five, starting to think about what would an Avatar story be like if it was a family drama, if it was The Godfather,” Cameron said at a recent press event.
But that doesn’t mean you’ll see any na’vis eating cannoli and ordering hits on enemies.
“Obviously very different genre, very different genre, but I got intrigued by that idea. So, that’s really what it is. It’s a generational family saga. And that’s very different from the first film. Now, it’s the same type of setting, and there’s the same respect for the shock of the new, that we want to show you things that not only you haven’t seen, but haven’t imagined. I think that’s absolutely critical to it. But the story’s very different. It’s a continuation of the same characters, but what happen when warriors that are willing to go on suicide charges, and leap off cliffs on to the back of big orange toruks, what happens when they grow up and have their own kids? It becomes a very different story. Now the kids are the risk-takers and the change-makers. So, it’s interesting, but it makes sense to me. Everybody’s either a parent, or they had parents at the very least, and if you look at the big successful franchises now, they’re pretty much uninterested in that.”
Avatar 2 began filming last fall, ahead of a planned December 2020 release.
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He definitely won’t be mining Marvel for any inspiration. Cameron also revealed he’s kind of sick of all the Avengers movies.
“I’m hoping we’re going to start getting Avenger fatigue,” he said.
“Not that I don’t love the movies. It’s just, Come on, guys, there are other stories to tell besides, you know, hypogonadal males without families doing death-defying things for two hours and wrecking cities in the process.”
Cameron revealed this all while promoting his upcoming AMC documentary show, AMC Visionaries: James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction, which premieres April 30th.