Avatar director James Cameron has revealed that he would like to see films have a separate cut for theatrical and streaming releases.
When Covid-19 hit the United States in 2020, it fundamentally changed the way Hollywood does business. Many films were delayed, released directly to streaming services, or released in theaters, and these services simultaneously. While box office returns have been steadily climbing again, they are nowhere near as high as they once were, and releasing on these platforms has steadily become a more normal way to release what would otherwise be a major theatrical release.
There has been a lot of discussion as to whether or not the final method is here to stay. Warner Bros, for example, released its entire 2021 theatrical slot onto its streaming platform, HBO Max as well as in theaters. Directors like Denis Villeneuve have made it clear that they do not agree with this method while Avatar director James Cameron sees some potential in it.
James Cameron is currently working on Avatar 2 which has been in its post-production phase for a while and recently released a new image that showed off his world’s underwater creatures. Recently the Avatar director participated in a director-on-director interview with Variety where the subject of streaming services was bought up. James Cameron brought up the idea of releasing different cuts on streaming service, having longer cuts for the home release and the shorter ones for theatrical ones:
“I think what we can see is an expanded form of cinema. I want to do a movie that’s six hours long and two and a half hours long at the same time. Same movie. You can stream it for six hours, or you can go and have a more condensed, roller coaster, immersive version of that experience in a movie theater. Same movie. Just, one’s the novel, and one’s the movie. Why not? Let’s just use these platforms in ways that haven’t been done before.”
Here is the official synopsis for the first Avatar film:
AVATAR takes us to a spectacular world beyond imagination, where a reluctant hero embarks on an epic adventure, ultimately fighting to save the alien world he has learned to call home. James Cameron, the Oscar-winning director of Titanic, first conceived the film 15 years ago, when the means to realize his vision did not exist yet. Now, after four years of production, AVATAR, a live action film with a new generation of special effects, delivers a fully immersive cinematic experience of a new kind, where the revolutionary technology invented to make the film disappears into the emotion of the characters and the sweep of the story.
Avatar 2 is currently set to be released on December 16th of 2022. Stay tuned for all the latest news surrounding the film and be sure to subscribe to Heroic Hollywood’s YouTube channel for more original video content.
Source: Variety
