Last week, “La La Land” tied “Titanic” and “All About Eve” for the most Oscar nominations ever, tallying up fourteen nods. Whether it goes on to match the eleven wins of James Cameron‘s box office smash, we’ll have to wait and see, but with the musical currently doing big business — $220 million worldwide and growing — it’s the rare intersection of commercial and critical favor coming together. However, that won’t stem the tide of criticism from those who believe the Academy doesn’t do enough to recognize populist entertainment.
Talking with The Daily Beast, Cameron says that despite recognition in recent years (mostly thanks to the expanded Best Picture category) of movies like “Inception,” “Gravity,” and “Mad Max: Fury Road,” there is still a bias against movies driven by visual effects or that fall into the more traditionally mainstream.
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“There’s definitely a bias. The Academy still has a majority of its members that are actors. Look, I love actors, but that’s how they think — they’re generally skeptical of technology. So when they see a film that’s too dependent on visual effects, they say, oh, that’s not an acting movie,” Cameron said. “Well ‘Titanic’ was a visual effects movie in sheep’s clothing, you know? Yes, it had visual effects, but it was about the people and about the story. The visual effects were eclipsed by that. But if you do a movie like ‘Avatar,’ the effects are right out front, and even though I felt the acting was just as good, and the story we were telling was just as good, they’re not going to reward it the same way. That’s just a fact of life. I had made a decision way before ‘Titanic’ that I wasn’t going to serve two masters: I was going to put my visual cinema first. Even though I’ve spent an awful lot of time on scripts and on performance, I still love doing big, visual cinema. I doubt I’ll even get nominated again, but if I did, I’m probably going to lose to a Woody Allen movie. That’s the nature of it. So you don’t try to serve two masters.”
It’s an honest answer from Cameron, who also reveals that he’s sticking with projects that come from his own brain, so don’t expect him to take a meeting about make a Marvel or “Star Wars” movie any time soon.
“I’m not the slightest bit interested in laboring in someone else’s house,” he said.
That means all of Cameron’s attention is on the “Avatar” sequels, as he shared an update on their status.
“I’ve just finished the script to ‘Avatar 5.’ I’m now starting the process of active prep. I’ll be working with the actors in the capture volume in August, so I’m booked in production every day between now and then. Our volume is up and running, and everything is designed, and so we’re going full-guns right now,” he said.
We’re guessing the first return to Pandora will happen in 2018.
