James Cameron on Avatar 2’s 10 Cut Minutes: ‘I Don’t Want to Fetishize Guns’

Visionary director James Cameron has opened up about how his attitude towards guns in his films has changed over the years.

Cameron specifically mentioned the Terminator films while looking back on his use of guns in his stories, mentioning that he doesn’t want to “fetishize the gun.”

“I look back on some films that I’ve made, and I don’t know if I would want to make that film now,” Cameron told Variety. “I don’t know if I would want to fetishize the gun, like I did on a couple of Terminator movies 30-plus years ago, in our current world. What’s happening with guns in our society turns my stomach.”

The director then mentioned that his most recent film, Avatar: The Way of Water, had approximately 10 minutes of footage cut from it, all of which involved the use of guns.

“I actually cut about 10 minutes of the movie targeting gunplay action,” Cameron said. “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.”

Avatar: The Way of Water was directed and co-written by James Cameron. It features the return of Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Joel David Moore, Dileep Rao, Stephen Lang, Matt Gerald, and Sigourney Weaver. Additional cast members include Kate Winslet, Edie Falco, Michelle Yeoh, Vin Diesel, Jemaine Clement, and Oona Chaplin, alongside a slate of young actors.

“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,” says the official synopsis.

Three additional films are planned, with Avatar 3 tentatively scheduled for December 20, 2024, Avatar 4 set for December 18, 2026, and Avatar 5 on December 22, 2028.