James Cameron slams streaming releases amid Avatar’s record box-office success: ‘Enough with the streaming already!’

James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water is still going strong at the global box office, even after multiple weeks of release and is nearing the $2 billion mark. The film which released on December 16, had crossed $1 billion within 12 days of release. Now director James Cameron has said that he is not in the mood to entertain any ideas of the film eyeing a digital release so soon. (Also read: Avatar The Way of Water set to cross $1 bn in just 12 days, closer to becoming 3rd highest-grossing film of 2022: Report)

During an interview with Variety at the Golden Globes red carpet, where Avatar The Way of Water was nominated for Best Motion Picture (Drama) and Best Director (it lost both to Steven Spielberg’s The Fablemans), James Cameron addressed the enthusiasm of the audience to go to the theatres and watch a movie on the big screen rather than move in for a streaming date. The director was reminded in the same interview that the sequel to his 2009 original has now emerged to be the seventh biggest movie of all time and is showing no such signs of slowing down. Also, James Cameron has now directed three of the top 10 biggest movies ever, including the first Avatar and Titanic.

To this James responded, “I’m not thinking of it in those terms, I’m thinking of it more in the terms of, we’re back to theaters around the world. People are going back to theaters. They’re even going back to theaters in China where they’re having this huge COVID surge. We’re seeing as a society we need this, we need to go to movie theaters and have that experience. Enough with the streaming already! I’m tired of sitting on my a**.”

James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water has released 13 years after the 2009 original film. The sequel follows Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) as they try and protect their kids from the return of the Skypeople and Colonel Quaritch (Steven Lang) who is hell-bent on revenge. The film also introduces a new water tribe of the Na’vi called the Metkayina.

Avatar: The Way of Water, which released globally on December 16, also stars Sigourney Weaver, Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Edie Falco and Jemaine Clement. In India, the film has been released in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. Plans are already underway for the next two installments in the Avatar franchise to continue the saga of the Na’vi tribes of Pandora. The sci-fi feature has been named one of the ten best films of 2022 by the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute.