Avatar: The Way of Water: James Cameron Cut 10 Minutes Of Gun Violence

While the conversation about violence in media is not nearly as loud as it used to be, it is something that comes up quite often, and it is something that many filmmakers grapple with when working on their projects. James Cameron is not the same person he was when he first made films, and his change in views are [obviously] impacting how he is doing projects today. One of the most obvious ways comes from Cameron’s conversation with Esquire Middle East about Avatar: The Way of Water. The filmmaker revealed that he cut about ten minutes’ worth of gun violence from the sequel.

“I actually cut about 10 minutes of the movie targeting gunplay action. I wanted to get rid of some of the ugliness, to find a balance between light and dark. You have to have conflict, of course. Violence and action are the same thing, depending on how you look at it. This is the dilemma of every action filmmaker, and I’m known as an action filmmaker,” says Cameron.

If that sounds like a surprising take from the man who made The Terminator, then Cameron would very much agree. He says that he looks back at the films he made and isn’t sure he would make them today.

“I look back on some films that I’ve made, and I don’t know if I would want to make that film now. I don’t know if I would want to fetishize the gun, like I did on a couple of Terminator movies 30+ years ago, in our current world. What’s happening with guns in our society turns my stomach,” says Cameron. “I’m happy to be living in New Zealand where they just banned all assault rifles two weeks after that horrific mosque shooting a couple of years ago,” he adds as an aside.

The process of evolution is one that all creatives go through, and it isn’t at all surprising that the James Cameron making Avatar: The Way of Water isn’t the same one that made The Terminator. It’s good that people evolve and change their way of thinking, and Cameron changed the focus of the violence away from the guns in this new film toward the Tulkun, which is a different kind of violence, a “moral crime,” as he puts it.

Avatar: The Way of Water: Summary, Cast, Release Date

Set more than a decade after the events of the first film, Avatar: The Way of Water begins to tell the story of the Sully family (Jake, Neytiri, and their kids), the trouble that follows them, the lengths they go to keep each other safe, the battles they fight to stay alive,  and the tragedies they endure. The film is directed by James Cameron and produced by Cameron and Jon Landau; the film stars Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement, and Kate Winslet. Avatar: The Way of Water will be released on December 16th.