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“The Way of Water,” which is being shown in
3-D and 48-frames-per-second (double the standard), also means a new generation of technological advancement. While it’s unlikely to be as much a milestone as the first was visually, the blend of CGI and live action, above ground and under water, makes for an even more strikingly detailed vistas.
“We’re able to deliver a much greater ability of photorealism than we ever did before,” says producer Jon Landau. “When we made the first movie, I would say to people, ‘We need it to be photographic.’ Now in this movie, we have so many Avatar, Na’vi characters in the live-action world and we have so many live-action characters in the Pandora world, we need to be photoreal. That’s a new standard we have to live up to.”
“I don’t want to do anything but big swings,” Cameron says. “
I’m going to fall on my ass sooner or later. But if you’re not ready to fall on your ass, you’re not doing anything interesting.”
We’ve been here before. After cost overruns and delays, “
Titanic” was written off as a sure-to-bomb case study of Hollywood excess. Then it made $2.2 billion in ticket sales and won 11 Oscars. Not everyone was pre-sold on “Avatar,” either, which resuscitated 3-D after decades of dormancy.
“‘Titanic’ was assumed to be a big steaming pile,” says Cameron. “That was a much bigger flip. And we had a similar flip on a smaller scale with the first ‘Avatar.’ People saw the trailer on a little window on their laptop and called it ‘Smurfs’ and ‘videogame cinematic’ and stuff like that. Then they went to see it in the movie theater and went, ‘Wait, wait. It’s pretty cool.’”
