James Cameron, a name that must’ve come up on your social media feed again and again, just found himself surrounded by fans. The visionary director assembled some of his greatest fans so he could directly get feedback from them to improve and better the next installments in the Avatar series. As many may already know, Avatar: The Way of Water surpassed Titanic recently, making it the third highest-grossing film of all time. The film has made about $2.243 billion globally. The impact of it has been massive, and it was a film that was years in the making. So naturally, Cameron wanted some feedback from the audience. Here’s how that went.
Disney Studios
The event was held on the 16th of February at Disney Studios in Burbank. The film was screened for a bunch of special fans who may have already watched the film more than once. In fact, one fan admitted that that screening was his seventh time watching the sequel to Avatar. Cameron fans are clearly having a great time, but how do they really feel about the film? What can be done to make improvements?
“This is something we’ve never done, which is [ask], ‘How do we make the next film even better for the fans?’ Go talk to them, find out what’s on your mind,” said Cameron.
Cameron was joined by his long-time friend and producer of the film Jon Landau. The two made it incredibly clear to everyone that they weren’t looking for any praise or words of appreciation from the audience. While those are great, they were also looking for what they could do to improve. They wanted the fans to speak their minds:
“You guys can be totally honest with us, this is not just about telling us stuff we want to hear. It’s about telling us the stuff we … need to work on more.”
The film is now nominated for four academy awards at the upcoming Oscars. Many speculate that Avatar: The Way of Water is likely going to win at least the Film of The Year award at the academy. The only other contender may be Top Gun: Maverick. However, Cameron’s film has had a much more formidable global impact. In fact, it helped Hollywood break back into the Chinese film markets, where it made over $200 million since its release. The field feedback was a part of making Avatar 3 even bigger. Cameron came there personally to talk to his fans. He would hand out the mic and ask very narrowed-down questions about the plot, camera angles, the way CGI was utilized, and so on.
It’s important to note that The Way of Water took about 12 years to make. This was mainly because a lot of technology needed to make the film was still in development back in 2017 when production started. Clearly, Cameron is a man who plans ahead and has enough patience to deliver a masterpiece no matter how long it takes.
The Hollywood Reporter talked with one fan, Jeff Napshin of Star Track Tours, who recounted his experience of the event. He mentioned how he’d “never seen a director ask for this kind of audience feedback that he clearly took seriously.” He also mentioned how Cameron revealed details about the editing process and how they had to get rid of things that didn’t work:
“He also joked about some plot screw-ups that he had to deal with in the movie and how the movie plot constantly changed in editing as they tried to find what worked. I really believe this experience was unique and special, and as James Cameron said, let’s get together in two years and see if our ideas and feedback made the film.”
Well, hopefully, the third installment in the series won’t take as long as the second one because the fans cannot wait.
