Hollywood Learned All the Wrong Lessons From <em>Avatar</em>
When the director James Cameron was working on Avatar, he was holding the biggest bargaining chip imaginable. His last major feature, 1997’s Titanic, was the most successful film in Hollywood history, overcoming its budgetary woes and behind-the-scenes drama to become a box-office phenomenon unlike any other. Avatar was another risky bet in theory, an original sci-fi epic about nine-foot-tall blue aliens called the Na’vi who’d be rendered through advanced CGI and motion-capture technology. But still, this would be a James Cameron film—a fact the director said he had to remind the honchos of during production.
“The studio felt that the film should be,referring to one of ’s many exotic alien beasts.“I just drew a line in the sand and said, ‘You know what? I made . This building that we’re meeting in right now, this new half-billion-dollar complex on your lot? paid for that, so I get to do this.” He was right to put his ego on the line: Upon its release in 2009, outgrossed to become Hollywood’s new No. 1 movie of all time. And now, after another long wait, Cameron is back with a sequel, subtitled , due out in December. To prime the pump, the original was rereleased in theaters last week. On rewatch, it’s clear why the movie was such an extraordinary hit 13 years ago, but the starker truth is how Hollywood has learned so few lessons from that success.
