As we detailed extensively in our Biggest Entertainment Stories Of 2022 & What’s Next feature from late last year, while riding high for years and seemingly the future of the film and television industry, the bubble burst on streaming last year. The shortest version of that story? Netflix stock tumbled in early 2022, and then in April, the streamer announced it had lost subscribers for the first time in more than a decade, its stock plunged heavily, and the company quickly scrambled to go to an ad-model-tier subscription model. But there was a fear and ripple effect throughout Hollywood, as Wall Street and investors seemingly lost confidence in streaming, an ad-freeze began, and streamers like HBO Max started canceling shows left, right, and center to save money (though theirs is a slightly different pickle about all the debt they have).
This brings us to James Cameron, who was on Kim Master’s The Business podcast this week talking about all things “Avatar: The Way Of Water.” It was certainly an interesting conversation but conducted before the film hit theaters and became the number-one-grossing film of 2022. One of his key takeaways—which proves to be correct yet again—is that ‘Avatar’ movies are not about opening weekends but the slow and steady long-haul race. Cameron also said that the film would have to rely on repeat viewings for it to be as big a hit as Disney needs.
“It’s not going to be about a big weekend, no matter how big that weekend is. People have to want to see it again,” he explained, which is ironic because ‘The Way Of Water’ is already a huge hit. And having been in theaters for only three weeks so far, it’s very likely that the majority of audiences haven’t had a chance to see it more than once.
Given Master’s podcast is about the industry’s business, she couldn’t help but ask Cameron’s thoughts on streaming. And while he didn’t directly address the 2022 streaming downturn and the bubble burst, he did seem to suggest that Hollywood panicked during the pandemic and going in a— maybe desperate full force and overspending—is how they got themselves into the current predicament.
“I feel like everyone got caught up [streaming] it when the pandemic hurt—it just didn’t hurt; it killed [cinemagoing],” he explained. “We’re resurrecting it out of the grave now, [but] it killed [theaters] dead for almost a year.”
The ‘Avatar’ filmmaker suggested streaming was Hollywood’s next best narrative for the stock market’s dire perspective on the industry, but how that plan backfired and hurt themselves.
“Everybody had a great story for Wall Street about how they were going to create all this content,” Cameron said. “And from what I’ve seen from afar because I wasn’t directly in the game, it seemed like everyone was throwing stupid money at it to generate content and to try and create a new or constantly refreshing flow.”
“But it seems to me now the average viewer has to have eight or ten different subscriptions to see everything,” he continued. “So, it seems unsustainable on its face like a big Ponzi scheme, to me. I think there’s going to be some consolidation.”
However, Cameron wasn’t all negative about the positive aspects of streaming, especially in the advantages of long-form storytelling, and he’d love to try and explore it because he’s always written too much and had to cut his film back further.
Either way, “Avatar: The Weight Of Water” is a big hit now and has grossed $1.5 billion worldwide and become the highest-grossing movie of 2022 globally. Having only been in theaters for 23 days now, it’s really only the beginning for a film many think can now gross upwards of $2.2 billion on the low end of projections at the very least. Stay tuned and check out The Business podcast conversation below.