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James Cameron isn't making Avatar for the money, but because "hopefully it can do some good"
While the Avatar: Fire and Ash director says movies aren't the solution to human problems, they can help connect us to lost things, like our ties to nature
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James Cameron's Avatar universe has grossed an obscene amount of money at the box office. Across just two movies, the franchise has made a mind-boggling $5.2 Billion (according to Box Office Mojo's numbers for Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water), and that number is only expected to get more impressive once the third movie drops this year. But according to the creator/director himself, it's not money that's kept the Avatar franchise alive.
It's the chance for it to do some real good.
The Terminator 2: Judgement Day and Aliens director recently spoke to The Rolling Stone about what he was trying to do with an upcoming project after Avatar, the adaptation of Charles Pelegrino's 2025 work Ghosts of Hiroshima. However, when the discussion turned toward the reasons why Cameron makes movies, the director's scifi saga of the Na'vi/human relationship came to the forefront.
"I’ve justified making Avatar movies to myself for the last 20 years," said Cameron, "Not based on how much money we made, but on the basis that hopefully it can do some good, it can help connect us, it can help connect us to our lost aspect of ourself that connects with nature and respects nature and all those things."
That said, Cameron clarifies that it's not movies themselves that will help the planet - rather what they can inspire in their viewers.
"Do I think that movies are the answer to our human problems? No, I think they’re limited because people sometimes just want entertainment, and they don’t want to be challenged in that way. I think Avatar is a Trojan horse strategy that gets you into a piece of entertainment, but then works on your brain and your heart a little bit in a way."
Avatar: Fire and Ash comes to theaters December 19.
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