James Cameron on the new ‘Avatar’ DVD: ‘There’s ZERO extras!’
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The great thing about being on top of the world is that you can say anything you damn want and nobody can stop you. That’s probably why I can’t stop reading James Cameron interviews. In Hollywood, where most people always carefully watch they say, Cameron -- having just made the biggest-grossing movie of all time -- has the air of a guy with a burning, pent-up desire to spill his guts, like a killer eager to settle a few last scores before he goes to the gallows.
With his first bare-bones ‘Avatar’ DVD coming out Thursday, Cameron sat down to talk with Entertainment Weekly’s Chris Nashawaty, offering a sort of ‘World According to Jim’ look at the upcoming stream of ‘Avatar’ DVDs (you can buy a special edition later this year, with a 3-D DVD on the way sometime next year). But for the most part, Cameron simply enjoyed the fun of being able to say what he wanted to say about anyone. A few examples:
On the stripped down nature of the new ‘Avatar’ DVD, which if nothing else shows how much power Cameron has over 20th Century Fox: ‘There’s zero extras! There’s so few extras that you put it in, you push play, and the movie starts. There are no trailers, there’s no [expletive] at the beginning that you have to endlessly go through. I have a deal with the studio and it goes like this: Any movie I make that makes over a billion dollars goes out without a bunch of crap trailers for your other movies.’
On how he knows that everyone will be perfectly happy watching the movie they saw in 3-D in theaters in 2-D at home on a Blu-ray DVD on TV: ‘My kids have watched it on DVD probably 10 times. I finally had to pry it out of their hands because they’re six and nine and they were learning too many bad words. They certainly didn’t mind watching it on DVD.’
On why adding six new scenes to the next DVD release wouldn’t turn him into a philistine like George Lucas, who goes back and uses new technology to spiff up his old movies: ‘I’m not into revision. I think every film should be executed exactly as it was executed at the moment. I actually don’t believe ... like when George went back and put new creatures into the original ‘Star Wars.’ I find that disturbing. It’s a revision of history. That bothers me. I certainly wouldn’t go back and do that to any of my films.’
Unless, of course, it’s Cameron who is using new technology to spiff up his old movies by converting them into 3-D:‘I think there is a role for conversion and we’re going to convert ‘Titanic’ and we might do one or two of my other films when the costs come down. I mean, ‘Titanic’ in 3-D? That’s going to be great.’